Sunday, March 14, 2021

Public Access Poems Episode II

Another poem from a RPAN broadcast, this one March 12th 2021.  


That's When the Cannibalism Started 

When I sway up steps of steel
and wood,
the train three minutes away,
I whiff something throat deep:

pungent city of imagination

ascending on the steam of my

lunch, I taste what a child tastes

 

when they bite down on adulthood.

It’s the home part that reeks,

the poetry part, drinking

 

on the subway in the hopes of infection

         waiting for the bus might have been

         the most purposeful part of my life

         in Chicago. An excuse to be late,

 

or for this poem to lack form.

True uselessness takes throngs.

Misplaced in the forest one

 

is swaddled to death; our eldest

ancestors were hiccupped back into earth.

To die in this city is to die in the name of

 

humanity, under the watch of my

fellow beings. This fact makes me uneasy.

It’s difficult to feed something after your death

 

in a city this size. To be eaten

after death in metropolia

requires hearty follow through,

 

deliberate purchases before insuring

your body feeds something else after

you finally snuff it.

 

The cat, the loneliness,

the gustier to command the timing,

hopefully the feline you adopted

 

gets to you before the landlord.

From what I’ve gleaned

feeding a cat after you died

 

used to be easier. Bus

wait, stone veranda,

a smoke and beer.

 

I polish off two cans

with the bus in clear view,

idling simply just a few blocks

 

down. I teeter as I board

sizzle to the back row,

visions belching before the wheels move.

 

Before I can get back to cat food,

a fellow fuck-up asks for a beer,

shows his empty whisky bottle as ID.

 

I give him a can and he asks who I’m listening to.

“Dahmer”, I cop. “Shit," he belches, "My aunt knew a guy-

cops found his heart in Dahmer’s fridge.”

 

He’s shit for reals,

no lie, Jeff is that close.

I pawn him another can

 

before parting ways,

vomit at the crossroads.

Perhaps we return to nature here

 

super omnia tyrannis

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