The Tragedy of the Quotidian

Reading, writing, shitting.
Close the stall door, pull out the sanitary guard, sit down.
Reading, writing, shitting.


The radio, the paper thrown out of a truck with its headlights on
driving slowly down the street in the dark, the computer screen,
the newstand,the cable news program -- all of these people trying
to tell us what is happening.

Eat, sleep, drive, lock the door.

1989

Listening to Led Zeppelin on a walkman with four hours of batteries left
somewhere over Central Asia. On our next flight we'll see Everest, off to the
left.

Continental plates drifting and crashing, tidal waves erasing, mangrove forests sinking.
A tiger paddling through brown water.

A Grey Thursday

Freezing in my underpants. Half a bagel uneaten.
The crows outside are waiting for me to give up so that
they can eat my eyeballs. Ocular juice drizzling down their
beaks, matting down their mangy feathers.
It's just breakfast.

Morning Person

Not able to wake up. I keep on losing my glasses in my dreams. My eyelids don't open all the way. Things are too dark and I feel like it's sort of my fault.

But then I'm awake and useless and huge. Hair and skin and a clouded mind. Slightly off balance stepping out of bed. Reaching out to steady myself. The first glimpse into the mirror. That's who I am, still, again, for a little while longer.

Monday Evening

Nothing lasts.

Eight and a half hours

Trying to sleep, but beset with completely unauthorized dreams. These things are not supposed to happen. A piece of peanut left lodged in my molar, released by an exploring tongue. An imagined wet, pink theater of improbable activity. The space of the mouth is flipped by flipping the tongue.

It's nothing but taking out the trash. Nothing but the janitorial services of the mind, dressed in grey jumpsuits, handling unacceptable needs. Best not to dwell on these things. Best to let them go. Dreams are meant to be forgotten. That's why we forget them. Except when we don't.

The Animated Beast

Darkness and the liquid stillness of fifteen minutes before one in the morning.
A collection of inert objects before me on the table, just my fingers restless still.
The raw materials of the earth, brought to life through the magic of nerve and muscle.

有効期限。

新月は希望および酸乳と膨脹する。

I Like Frosted Shredded Wheat

I prefer Frosted Shredded Wheat in the mornings.
I like my cereal slightly détrempé,
a sweet pabulum that I spoon into my pink hole,
soft and visqueux, sodden with milk, it goes down easy.

The Will to Power

Silly man needs to pee.
Silly man little wee-wee.

Silly man cough cough cough.
Silly man, he's had enough.

Silly man needs to go now.
Silly man is shrinking.

Secure My Borders

Why is my phlegm bloody?
Sanguis, lentus, I am so sick.
My middles, they feel shitty.

The spicy food hurts me.
My little radio keeps talking.
I woke up spitting.

Super Wednesday

Camomile tea with lots of honey for my throat,
reading Capital in my pajamas with the chills
from fighting off the flu.

The grapefruit juice burning as it goes down,
fessus, fessus, fessus,
fastidium, fastidium, fastidium.

Awake and pissing away my time
into the 1.4 L gpf urinal,
wandering back through towers,
reading the words Deloitte & Touche
in the sky.