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Indecisive in Denmark
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Now it's much more costly to get high no, I would not want to be a crab To be or not to be You see because that was Social Security Thoreau was wrong, you know. not because of bedbugs or flaky skin But in waking hours they haven't a clue And Bukowski goes into a bar in Topanga Canyon outside L.A. The mass of men today It is that tiny slice of men (and women of course) Hell, I might even shout a little, too. Which brings us full circle to the question, Or do i weather the storm some more? for all the good painting ever did van Gogh Enough. I took the red pill And I laughed a deep belly laugh To be or not to be? Signed,
Indecisive in Denmark
Nov. 5, 2002
to be or not to be
that once sufficed
as heavy questions go
but no
now it's Tuesday in Denmark
and the bay is brown broth
of stoned sea things
crabs hopped up on last night's
whirlpool rides
storm spun
like children on a city park turntable ride
spinning wild dizzy dervish
head to the sky
it's a free kiddie high
spinning in place until you fall down
down the laundry shoot of
adolescence
teenage-ness
twentysomething
thirty-oh-fuck-what?
as an adult
if I can indulge myself in such
an adjective, a noun really
at least I'm not a crab
ugly fuckers, crabs
staring one well-war-painted bugger in the face
the other day
his little red claw snapping at air
unaware
that with my boot I could have crushed him flat
i threw him back
back to the bay
less out of empathy than disgust
forever a hater of 8-legged things
and what's a crab but an underwater arachnid
nor eat a crab
so back you go to the spinning soup
the Creole seasoned boil of Rollover Bay
and I awake another day
to the cell phone ringing, vibrating
walking crab-like across the bedside table
and like an empty billfold one opens
knowing full well that
NOTHING
is inside
I open it
then close it
which makes the ringing stop
but still someone's out there
the line is ringing for them
and I ponder the 504 area code
as I roll back over in bed
fetal, facing the sea
waiting.
used to be
enough
but now it's just too vague
to general a question
in a world of a billion jillion questions
like this one:
what do i do today?
on the line from New Orleans
and the nice lady left a nice message
all about the complexities of this process
that I have thrown myself into
like a crab in a dervish sea
the process of getting help
from the government
of winning the SSI lottery, as it were
whereupon
and whereafter
after rejections & written appeals
and more appeals before JUDGES! ooh
some poking, some probing
maybe even a little..
electro.. shock..THERAPY!
allegedly
a check, albeit paltry
arrives monthly to your door
to stave off the fits of tears
perhaps
and lend a hand at last
in what has been a struggle of years and years
to keep my head
in this Fisher King
Fisher Price
popcorn popper push toy world
where my pen is the little blue stick
and the simple tasks of daily life and all the strife
and all the "No I don't have an agent yets"
and all the "No you can't find me in any bookstore, sorrys"
and all the attention deficit
and subsequent unfinished manuscripts
and all the tightly-capped fits of terror among family
and all the drunken rages aimed my way for "putting her through this"
and the loneliness both alone and in crowds
and the horror of falling bodies afire that no Peter Pan should ever
have seen
all these things in rainbow colored balls
go pop, pop, pop
beneath a little plastic dome
as this little boy lost pushes it home
until he one day wakes up a man without a home
just a lot of stuff on his back
and now two cars, Jack
and he prays as he pushes that little blue stick
or taps out his love and desperation on little white keys
that somebody
somebody
will take all this shit
and publish it
when one tired day
he answer's Hamlet's query
with an
N
O
T.
The mass of men don't lead lives of quiet desperation.
The mass of men watch too much TV and
lead lives they find tiresome
work jobs they find irksome
and shop at Wal-Mart and
mow their lawns
and yawn
and itch in the night
but because in their sleep they know
that there should be
could be
more to life
than this.
and they'll punch you in the face should you try
to impart to them a clue or two
it's useless.
whilst house shopping in his old age.
He just wants a drink, but one of these men
one of Thoreau's mass of men
and as luck would have it
a fan of Bukowski's recognizes him
and faster than you can say "Lower prices everyday!"
the whole biker bar is up in arms
a howling gang of disappointed fans
because between the poet and the protagonist
and this old man sitting at their bar
there is an unbridgeable gulf
and Bukowski grabs his wife and runs
and he doesn't say it in such dramatic terms as this
but I'll read between the lines & assure you
it's one of the saddest moments of his life
"My fans," he says with a sigh.
(and I'll say today to take Henry off the hook
because I love the prince of Walden Pond in every way)
The mass of men today live lives of boisterous ignorance.
the unfortunate aware
who live lives of quiet desperation.
A few shout out
(Seattle)
but most just keep their heads down
fly beneath the radar
and try and stay focused on what's real:
in particular, their lives and how little time
any one of us has left.
Call it snobbery if you like
but I know myself to be steadfastly moored in the latter camp.
And I'm happy here.
Despite the popcorn popper of madness that rolls ahead of me in the
sand like a troublesome little Jesus on wheels,
I am happy out here in the Aware.
Give me an agent, a publisher, a royalty check
with enough zeros to keep me in my meds and afford me a home somewhere
and I might just stick around this Earth
to jiggle your minds for decades still
and give birth to the four dozen or so books
no doubt knocking `round my head.
what do i do today?
Do I drive an hour to the local SS Office
and file that appeal
for mental health disability
that i started nine month's back
after my post-9/11 psych ward sleepover week
and maybe in another nine months win my case
and start my fixed income life at the age of 36
and always know that I'll have my meds
two seemingly small measures of safety
the absence of which
are no doubt to blame
for my unconscious fondling
of that bullet again?
roll the dice
ride out the waves of "wailing" at ghosts
Captain Ahab on Prozac and waning..
and finish that blockbuster screenplay
and get it in the mail?
and write another novel
and toss..
it
into
the
sea
for all the good any creation is unshared,
un-share-able
stillborn.
By the time you read this
my decision is long made.
and did neither
wrote this tome of a poem instead
and laid flat on my back on the dock
my head hanging off, inverted
to an upside down sun fizzle out into
that little wedge of Earth
that we call Everything.
at the false bravado of that little isthmus called Earth
as the humbling girth of infinite sky
opened my eyes and mind
ALL THAT BLUE!
ceases to be
a question
of any consequence at all
on your back
aware of the sky.
His Lordship RSM the Duke of the Inverted Sunset
Write Me!
