*

i felt an overwhelming urge to sit down
but i didn’t. i felt decisive. i took a bite
of my burger, and it tasted exactly
the way i needed it to.

if i was a detective i could get to the bottom of things
if i was a gunslinger i could shoot you between the eyes
if i was more efficient this wouldn’t be a problem

i thought about all of this as i cleaned the kitchen floor the other day
and then i didn’t think about anything
except how i’d managed to clean the kitchen floor.

*

i didn’t feel like making lunch because
there wasn’t any food in the fridge.
i walked down to broad street and then
i took that up to mcdonald’s
where i stood in line for a very long time
and in my head
a great speckled bird with teeth descended
from the clouds and swallowed everyone there whole

shrines were be built on the corner
and everyone stood around
like a fire drill.

do you like them? they're haunted

all the tombstones were sitting in trashcans
like a landscape.
death was on the tip of everyone’s tongues.

i lay in bed, listening for the air conditioner to shut off
so that i could know when i should have been asleep.

from off in the distance a police siren screamed
from ten feet behind a baby started to howl.
outside three dogs began to bark.
from the other room a dachshund began to pace.
furiously.

i drank ten beers and ten pots of coffee and went to sleep for eight hours
on a giant mattress that was both firm and comforting
and that drained away my aches and pains
and i was never exhausted again.

you have nothing to worry about

everything was calm and everyone was very quiet
and i remember how the floor looked before i straightened it up
and some times i think how things must have been
before air freshener came around.

out under the old dead tree is where she robbed him
and by the train tracks and in the backyard
and on the roof tops and while he was fixing some dinner
and tying his shoe and once when she had back problems
and he was tying her shoe and every time
she pulled his gun from his pants and he just kept leaving it there.

i wonder about the effect of this on his credit report
or what really effects your credit report.
i woke up and everything seemed very dark
and then it wasn’t anymore.
the next morning she asked me
what i had been dreaming about and i told her
that i didn’t remember eventually i didn’t.

i got them really sad blues

everything was calm and everyone was very quiet
and i remember how the floor looked before i straightened it up
and how things smelled before air freshener came around.

it’s been one of those days where you wish
a microwave could make things cold too.
which isn’t interesting so much as desperate
and very necessary
like a good credit rating
or a vegetable garden
or a firm foundation
a high school education
and several feet of extension cord
oh for all sorts of things

attention shoppers

i was in the grocery store
which was air-conditioned.
i asked someone where the tomatoes went
and was told they came by boat.
also that they flew.
i got the sense that we were talking about different things
and in the space between
when someone made a page
and hung up the phone i could hear tidal waves
in the intercom announcements.
it reminded me of being inside of something.
i just kept walking and so did everyone else.

a baby started to cry
and another baby
this one all the way across the store and then
everyone in the store started to just howl
even the intercoms.
the babies got real quiet then.

i got in line and i paid for my food.
my sweat had turned into small drops of ice
when i walked out the doors they melted.

take me where the cement grows

i walked down a side street and i
walked down a main street and then
several more things like that happened.

it was late and there was a park with some benches
and i wanted to sit down in it and just not do anything else
but it was too hot.

it’s days like these
you think how great it would be if microwaves
had a button to make your drinks cold.

the sun went down and i kept walking
behind me was a lot of hot air
and a car whose horn played la cucaracha

i wanted to walk to a funeral home because
i saw a movie with these people who were gravediggers
and they just seemed to satisfied.
plus i have experience digging
plus they are probably air-conditioned.

on my way home i thought i saw a man on a roof
who was sitting in a chair
getting ready to fall. there could have been
a pair of shovels by his picket fence
and a mariachi band standing in the wings
but i could have just imagined that.

i had the feeling that everything was dead and everything was buried
and it was very quiet
wherever that was.