VITAMINS AND MINERALS

1. The Rooms Look Bad
2. The Man, So Stuck
3. He Wants to Move
4. He Takes a Nap
5. He Falls Away
6. He Sleeps Too Much
7. He Needs to Breathe
8. He Finds the Book
9. Just for Example
10. And So He Does
11. Just Follow Me
12. He Grabs Some Cake
13. It Comes to This
14. The Soul Seems Lost
15. Kick Ass




5.

He falls away. He falls away.

Into secluded sleep.
Long and hard and strange and deep.

He falls away. He falls away.

From his family. From his friends.
He searches comfort in the odds and ends.
Like impulsive shopping.
Or compulsive popping
Of junk food, fat, and liquor.
And name brand drugs that confuse his body but brings the high on quicker.
In his sleep, he walks ten feet to the kitchen fridge and freeze,
The cabinets of his most desires and the pantry of his needs.
He craves the starches most of all.
The more the sugar, the more the fall.
The high glycemic wave he rides.
Oh, what progress. Such big strides.

White sugar, white flour,
Lovers of his midnight hour,
Feeds the fire, and there he fuels
The workmanship of caloric tools.

He pounds his mouth with pounds of cake
As he gets the blender read for a peanut butter shake.

From dusk to dawn, he lives his dream
And fill his mouth with the aerosol cream.
He cocks his head as he tilts the can.
Just a little bonus in his late-night feeding plan.
Cccchshshshshshshshshshshs!
Cccchshshshshshshshshshshs!
Cccchshshshshshshshshshshs!
Cccchshshshshshshshshshshs!

Any more he’d have a sugar stroke.
So he grabs himself a Diet Coke as

He falls away. He falls away.

03/19/2008

Author's Note: Vitamins and Minerals was written in June 2003. It was originally performed as a One-Man-Poetry-Show at One Arm Red Theatre in DUMBO, Brooklyn. You can read the poem in its entirety. Or broken up in 15 individual pieces.

Posted on 03/19/2008
Copyright © 2024 David Garner