Censor me still-life
take my Tomah Graph
swimming in the Hollywood Holiday Inn pool
now drowning in a pool of my own
painful frustrations and jitters
uninvited guests in the gray of night
this brain hurts like cinema for Alex
have another stick of chewing gum
another stick of dynamite to ease the grief
you so gallantly feel at this moment
these white office lights bleaching me pale
invading my blood and neuropathic welly wells
the gondolas paddle through my veins of Venice
churning up all the nicotine clots and bad vibes
where is my slice of American apple pie
I must of dropped it in Vietnam
when the grenade went off and all was nonsense
Cradling three bags of light in my coat pockets
as I walked along
the Lake Marion Passage Trail some 30 years later
I noticed the sky was still the same deep blue
the leaves of the trees still fell in perfect rhythm
every year
the dissection of Autumn
Saroyan and Whitman staring down
Jack passed out in a beached aluminum fishing boat
the narrow, quiet roads lined with the dangling limbs of tall, skinny trees
the Spanish moss hanging there like the fallen locks of a stoned Medusa
the quiet so soothing, the calm so intoxicating, the wet so disheartening
but a woodsy wander it shall be
in the rural confines, gloriously gorgeous confines, of the southern Carolina place
Until… Put my fist through the timber lodge paneling
the boiling inside again
asking for it again
just asking for it again, the other side of the coin.
CEREAL AFTER SEX 