Saturday

Reddit, then Twitter, then Facebook, then Gmail
Then the blogs I visit every day to learn what’s new
Then the blogs I visit every day to learn what’s important
Then Reddit, Twitter, Facebook, and Gmail again
To remind everyone that I’m alive and writing
And a better, funnier version of me than I was yesterday.
And I want to see who got fat
And I want to know who is still fuckable
And I want to know who got too famous to write me back
And in return I say go ahead
Root through the things I forgot to destroy
Sniff your way up the trail I leave daily
Because I am doing the same to you
Because I love it
Because this is a new way to be loved.

Please add me to your LinkedIn network!
We’ve never met, but RSVP to my Facebook event!
Groupon and Costco and worthy causes demand your attention/money!
Make, do, produce, entertain, engage! Bring forth!

But today is Saturday.
I will not RSVP.
I will not finish this poem today.
I will not finish this stanza here at my desk
Which is arrayed in humiliating filth:
Stained coffee cups,
Empty cans of caffeinated vitamin-flavored poison,
Candy wrappers,
The dust-flocked splatter from an ancient sneeze on my computer monitor,
A dead fruit fly,
A live fruit fly.
I will not think about you
Seated at your own desk in another state or country
Or in bed with your laptop dangerously warming your crotch
Killing your sperm and doing God knows what else
To unseen bits of you, radiation uncoupling the bonds
That keep your insides knitted in the place and shape that is you.

Your finger clicks the mouse
And the page refreshes again
And you say, That sounds good,
I should write that down
So I can watch/read/listen to that.
That will make me more like myself, to do that thing I saw.
Or you say, I can’t believe someone got paid to write this shit
Or you say, Ten more minutes
And then I’ll get some real work done.

What you mean is, I’m bored.
Tell me a story.
Make me a story.
Make me into a story.
String the days like beads, one after another
In a burlesque of narrative.
Comfort me with the knowledge that after this
Will come the next thing and the next, and the next
And, in some convenient denouement,
We’ll groom a bit of meaning from all of this
With our spindly monkey fingers:
A morsel of Truth or, at the very least, continuity.
But Susan died of a staph infection two days ago
And I found out on Facebook
And I didn’t really know her at all
But I could so very easily spend nineteen ninety-five and two hours
On some bloodhound website
And fill a basket with the breadcrumbs
That shaped her online outline
Where she still lies.

Or I can decide to not be a goddamn vulture
Because it’s Saturday
And I can go to the market
And buy a box of wine
And start drinking before five
And make nothing of value
And toast the day’s heat and the sunset and the bugs
And the blue plastic Adirondack chair
That is so much more comfortable than the office chair
Where I’m not writing a poem today,
That poem I can’t quite finish
About how the apple tree in my neighbor’s backyard
Is a Japanese taiko drummer trapped in a folktale
Because a tanuki, a trickster raccoon-dog,
Cursed him for a parsimonious temple offering:
Wishing to be thought a great man
The drummer had tossed a handful of nails
Into the offering box,
Smiling as he heard the abundant clatter of metal,
Smiling as he heard the approving whispers
Commenting on his generosity.
But the trickster, in the guise of a simple peddler,
Passed the drummer on the road
And dropped a basket of apples
And noted how the drummer made such a show
Of gathering them up, returning all but one
Which he hid in his sleeve.
The first bite bound his feet to the earth
And turned his hair to leaves
And turned his fingers to branches
And the apple fell from his grasp
And struck a deep bass note on the taiko drum
And when the echoes faded his voice was gone
And in its place, only the sound of wind
And falling apples.

Another apple falls from my neighbor’s tree
And lands on the roof of an ancient Volvo
Sounding a deep bass note that wakes me from a doze
And steals my voice for just a moment
Until I remember where and who I am
And that it will be Saturday all day until tomorrow
And that there is no work to do until Monday
When again we will cry Bring forth, bring forth,
And bang on pots and pans
Windows and wineglasses
Cathedrals and bodies and keyboards
All things ringing and metallic, hard and hollow
Their vaulted insides filled with breath and whispers
Of the dead, of the words of the dead.
 
 
 
 

Edit: formatting, line changes  
 
Darkest Hour
Ideation