Someone needs to ask me sweetly
just what a nice guy like me
is doing in a mock disaster like this.

Didn’t I know there’s a war going on?
Didn’t I know was supposed to be eating breakfast alone
for the next twenty to twenty-two years?

Shouldn’t I have just stayed where I wasn’t needed?
It’s not like I’ve ever had to pay a shrink to show me
that the right pair of sunglasses on the right kind of professional
amateur model can always get me to crawl into the car.

Because I’m as ready to have all kinds of deep answers
to nonsense questions as I am to accept an honorable mention award,
for something or the other, on a city bus that wants to ride the railroad tracks.

Wouldn’t be the first time someone’s recognized me
for talents I don’t really have. Wouldn’t even be the most dishonest thing
I’ve ever done to be happy with where I am.

I’m not starved for attention,
but I could go for one or two more friends.
Give them the kind eyes that have already left town.
With my ribs turned into a fine, frenzied powder and party-favor.

Tell them I can talk for hours,
and not say anything of monetary value.

We’ll make all kinds of promises to each other,
and I’ll be mesmerized by the sounds
of whatever passes for the living daylights around here.

A lot of things in my life point to the possibility
that I’m not on the same pandemonium wavelength
as a lot of the supposed people around here.

Conflicting visions? Had the waitress at that diner
finally gone through with her sex-change operation?
How many run-ins have I had with the long arm of every psychotic burnout
from the pages of True Crime Detective Fiction? Conflicting?
Conflicting doesn’t even begin to cover it.

I’d question the state of my mental health,
but I like the courage to think I’ll like
what I may or may not find.

It would be better if only the bad things changed.
New faces and haunting serendipity forgive all.

10/14/2012

Author's Note: title taken from an akira kurosawa movie.

Posted on 10/15/2012
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