On the Couch Eating Pistachios, This Tends to Happen |
He didn’t have a lot left at the end of the day
he sat in front of the monolith giant big screen
black hole ennui vacuum sucking up pistachios
frozen yogurt and Grape Nuts feeling content,
somewhat chiseled but just as unwanted and horrified
as he ever had. The talking heads were depressing
and the bombs fell under darker skies.
He bemoaned all the women in those countries
that would never get him. He drove the metal beast
with a cell phone clipped to his disappearing ear
mouthing the words to other people’s lives
imitating intimacy with her still at the back of his mind.
He’d mimic clarity, feign the occasional attraction
but somehow she’d remain, erased only by empty lusting
and phosphorent miasma
across a matted sheaf of wounded windows.
He’d eke out some soul, scratch poems on them
and silently pray for the blind to read them aloud
while the ignorant feasted, regaled and sang
unto the great blackened, slowly waning hope
he’d long ago sold
to his demons.
copyright 2004
Matthew A.
Barraza |