.

I am holding my phone

At my front window,

.

I am taking a picture and

I am cropping the picture, afterward

On my phone.

.

I am looking at the picture

And all it illustrates such as

A tree with new apple blossoms,

Half-formed April grass and some

Lilting Spring leaves on the

Budding trees around.

.

I read poems that are long.

.

I read poems that don’t rhyme.

.

I read poems that morph and shift,

Poems in which lines themselves

Flee the margins and

Poems by black Americans

That cut through the system like a

Knife through a buffalo’s hide.

.

I shake my head

At the rash of humans

And their gluttony and their violence

And

.

I shake my head at America’s unwieldy

40-hour work week and

.

In my dreams I give a newborn babe new life and

I shake my head at this life I have given

Like scratching an itch while

Cowering behind a rampart of distraction.

The hills are alive

With the sound of consumers

Stepping within products

Into a uniform reality

That everyone acknowledges

But frowns at

Like Coolio

But look how the people glare

When you walk by doing you,

Their whole constitutions

Given to an earthquake of want

And look at all the times

The smiling lady in the middle

Sat with a sick grandmother

And fetched her water

And fetched her blood

And took something of her too as

That deceased grandmother smiles through those eyes and

Experiences

Like Cubist pixels

Comprise this life in opaque

Euphoria

 

The cosmological waves of the universe

Ripple and undulate in the stead

Of her all-informing presence,

With eyes like electric avenues

Of composite signals

Which take in and inform,

Now morphed to exclusive informants by

The way the sunglasses fall on her face.

Kindness is not innate.

It is

Something

We do

Because we believe

In it.

It is

An ideal

Of which animals are incapable and

It carries enough intrigue to typically

Act as an ethos

Of itself.

I erect a mountain

When I think of you and your fiery eyes

Like an endless chasm of

Dark, gray realizations

In the eyes of jaded professors

On the impossibility of happiness

And the rapture laced into danger and

All the while

I should just

Slug

.

Onto that mole hill

I perceive with my

Destitute afternoon consciousness

And call it a day

Sometimes I think about the interface of life

And how sometimes we seem like a deadened

Terrarium museum exhibit

And then sometimes the overall enterprise

Seems to breathe with fire and issue

Corridors of ingenuous authenticity,

.

With sleep undeniably falling in that latter category as

We could easily be continually functioning droids

That required no departure from consciousness for reparation

But we are made like this

Because that is what is real —

.

The qualitative nature of thoughts

And the readied disposition

Given life by a dark unconscious

.

And the tapestry of all of us

Infused by dreams,

Which sometimes seem like just an anchor

From concerned parties trying to

Recommune with us in the afterlife.

I sit here now

On March 22

And think about the inappropriateness

Of humming “Valentine and Garuda”

By Frank Black and the Catholics

As songs are only good for two seasons —

Soul Coughing’s “Soft Serve” good for winter and spring and

“Valentine and Garuda” good for fall and winter

.

Where the brown leaves might fall

By the St. Mary’s lake

To get buried under leagues of brown sludge

As if in New Jersey

.

Or you might shelter from the snow

In the bar where the slim bartender

Talks to you and makes your day

.

And down the street

You see that little girl

Who used to work at the grocery store

Now bartending, all grown up and saying she’d

“Rather bang Patrick Mahomes”

Than Aaron Rodgers,

.

Looking straight into your eyes and

You realize

You’re alive

And

.

This is

What people do to

Meditate

.

Before

The central heat,

Electric Lighting,

.

Steaming water and

General house-of-cards opportunism

Of it all.

The nice black man

Sits in his car

On Twyckenham

Gazing at the clear,

Amber March sunset

And on his face is neither victory

Nor defeat

Nor any type of physiognomy

Reflecting a self-concept

But solely absorption of the scene

Which to me looks like a lie

But to him is a pile of

Lemon meringue pies

Being flanked by downy

Sheep with lutes

And that my friends is truth

The city is as if

A sea of denigration

Where want and need

Are the formative traits,

The founding priorities,

And reality is just a

Ream of needy eyes,

Whites,

Little round daggers

Giving way

To the pallid entropy

Of stone-faced,

Elevated drivers and

Restaurants that they have everywhere

In the nation

Just a second ago, a Jersey Mike’s commercial came on the TV. I’ve never been to a Jersey Mike’s in my life but they seem to be doing pretty well these days, judging by the prevalence of their ad campaign. I must say, though, the sandwiches featured in the video bore a striking resemblance to those of Blimpie, a submarine sandwich chain we used to have here in northern Indiana as the primary competitor of Subway. Now this title of runner up probably goes to Jimmy John’s, obviously, another probable factor in Blimpie’s denigration of store volume.

I mean, is there actually something about Jersey Mike’s that’s better than Blimpie’s? I have to admit, that oregano was like glistening in the wind with some serious fervor. Or maybe people just like saying a restaurant with “Jersey” in the name and answering the question of “What would you like to order?” with “You talkin’ to me?”

Blimpie’s was basic. Sure. It was just sub sandwiches, chips, cookies and pop. I literally think that’s all we had in the whole store (I worked at one part time the summer before my senior year in high school). From what I remember, we didn’t even have any wraps. I suppose this led to its retraction too. But then, sub sandwiches are freakin’ everywhere. Now, in the South Bend area, in addition the “big two” of Subway and Jimmy John’s, there’s Penn Station (the undeniable titan, in my opinion), Potbelly, the aforementioned Jersey Mike’s, Which Wich and Portillo’s — all regional or national chains with bustling stores in or around town.

The demand for the product is obvious, in other words, which makes you wonder what went wrong with the Blimpie franchise, which I believe started in New York City (actually I think the Beastie Boys talk about going to one in “An Open Letter to NYC”). Like Jersey Mike’s, Blimpie didn’t toast the bread — it was just cold meats piled onto fluffly loaves, for the most part, and a little oven for whipping up things like chicken and bacon.

One noteworthy little bit of lore, anyway, that my boss told me while I was working at the Blimpie back in 2001, was that all of Subway’s meats are actually 65% turkey, with the exception of the turkey, of course, which would be 100%. Looking back on the Blimpie menu and product line, I can’t help but ruminate on how it really covered all the bases — ham, bacon, turkey, roast beef, capicola, salami, Italian meatball (the meatballs were held hot in sauce on the line, ready to go) and I think a veggie offering as well as a veggie patty. What more could you want in a quick, stop-and-go lunch diner? Everything was sliced fresh, including a variety of cheeses, and another thing I liked is that they offered six-inch or footlong, one catering to my mom and sister during our visits and the other my usual choice, especially after a soccer game and such.

Now, it’s like the foundation has been yanked out from under me. I go in a Subway, for instance, and though I generally enjoy their products decently I have that annoying knowledge that all their lunch meat is 65% turkey (I usually opt for the tuna, anyway). They have this irksome gaggle of breads to choose from, none of which really ever seem to hit the spot, contrasted sharply against the Blimpie menu which just had that one white bread that was perfect, unchangeable and baked to a flawless crisp, with no toasting required. I have to look at all these stupid options like pizza, buffalo chicken and wraps and I just think, can we go back to Adam and Eve?

Plus, my boss at Blimpie was really funny, which I suppose isn’t really to my point but is amusing to mention nonetheless. One time I accidentally threw this dirty pan into the sanitizing water instead of the detergent water and he goes, “Little mayonnaise floaties!” He would rib this one college girl who was home for the summer about her alcohol consumption down at IU: “She’s a lush… she pigs out.” And I mean, I got to work with that ultra-cute IU girl and also this stoner chick from Oregon who played a Sublime tape and always knew when the next Umphrey’s McGee show at the Mishawaka Brew Pub was going to be. Now I don’t have any of these things anymore — the Blimpie’s, the brew pub, the stoner chick, the Umphrey’s shows — and I AM the beer-guzzling curmudgeon. Well, at least you can see why, now.