It's Time For An Old Poem

Do you mind?  I have nothing to say, & this was written when I might have believed I had something to say, a little over twenty years ago.  It's called Death Treats.

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take the shadows, keep them outside the box, prop your big body between
them & the wet, hard summer night.  i don't have anything to say, really,
about noses, breasts, tongues, ankles, birthmarks, scratches, james joyce
or idaho.  i have nightmares because i want out of all this.

the gun goes in the mouth, points up.  afterwards, my cat eats the brains,
or something.  it could be a punchline of a joke, it could be the end of an
x-files episode, it could be something you forward to your favorite mailing
list.  i can't bear the fact that i have lost everything meaningful to me.

i have forgotten, i don't know how anymore, to communicate, to tell even
people who are or were friends how i am doing.  often i am doing something
so i do not know how i am doing.  the balloon drains slowly of air, i crawl
out of bed, i take the cigarette out of my mouth, i inflate all over again.

so, crybaby, the nothing left tastes like a sore throat, it drains down
your throat like some sinus disorder, it sets in the stomach like a
doctor's appointment, it never goes away.  i daydream about the
mythological stories where everyone changes into something else.  i can
only change into me.

my dusty past in cartons, crates, containers, real love, real connection,
things i think i kept in a folded piece of paper, in a letter from some
authority figure, in photographs, on audio & video cassettes, in locks of
hair, toenails, teeth, empty bottles of medicine, rat bones - where to take
it?

you can't take it with you.  you can't go home again.  you don't know what
you got until you lose it.  you can't teach an old dog new tricks.  you
can't win unless you play.  you can count the cliches like raindrops.  i am
unable to say exactly what i mean.  but i mean it.