Where does the time go


Do you hate your job?
If so, there it is—
there you have it
that’s how you grow old
so terribly fast

Don’t know about you
but if I can’t find a job I love
or at the very least
not hate

I’d rather be poor
and a bum
with the occasional food insecurity

doesn’t work
for everyone

but it’s my trick
of stalling down time

much preferable to me
than mustering
a strength that decreases
in amount
day by day

every dawn
when that alarm clock
yanks me out of sleep
to face the beginning
of the shifts in a job
that slowly kills me

the audacity then of some—
middle aged and wondering
in horror almost—
where did the time go

is it really any wonder

five days a week
for most of your lives
you think—
let me get through this shift
through this day
and the next
and the next

and the next

people living
for the weekends

people living
for that paid holiday
once a year

is it really
any surprise
then

that you wake up
one morning
and you slowly
make your way
to your bathroom
to brush your teeth

and there’s an old man
staring back at you

wrinkled
saddened
asking you

how could you
do this to me

how could you
do this to us.

Earworm

It’s Monday morning 
in Geezerville
and here I am
shuffling through
the grocery
with a cartful of nothing

Blue Oyster Cult 
Muzak
tells me not to fear the reaper

and I think, YES!

I have never felt so happy
about death.

“Impostor”

 

I tuck my right hand under my left,

Accept the gracious gift given to me,

And say “Amen” with a friendly nod

Knowing that I am an impostor.

After I return to my seat and recover my bearings, 

I shift my weight as I struggle to find comfort

Within the unforgiving wooden pews

That keep my body and beliefs in place.  

The peaceful palm of my wife

Calms my unsettled, unsavory nerves

As she escorts my perspiry hand

Over to the safe nest of her lap. 

She knows of my disinterested past

Regarding religion. 

I am no atheist or agnostic.  

I was raised to believe God was possible and present. 

There was just no urgency on my part

Or the parts of my parents

To instill and install the notions

The Bible was willing to cement in my mind. 

Many passages and psalms are news to me,

Yet the lyrics linger longer than I expect.   

My indifference makes no difference now. 

I mouth the words I have learned through repetition,   

My voice a whisper lost in an ocean of vibrato.

No one pays attention to how swiftly I sign the cross

Or how straight my posture is when I rise.  

I am in attendance

But I am not always present

Like God is.   

There is hope for me,

I hear.  

Charades come to an end.

Impostors come clean,

Get exposed as frauds

Or realize, 

Like I will

That they were never pretending

To be something 

They were not.

easier

everything

is getting

easier

and i

don’t like

it.

weight loss,

take ozempic.

write a paper,

use AI.

we are

banishing

the muscles

of humanity.

bodies

& brains

will soon

deteriorate.

we will

lose

the meaning

of achievement

for nothing

is earned

unless

it is

worked for.

and

the only

thing

we seem

to be

working for

is the

destruction

of ourselves.

The New is Already Old

all the dead promises drowning in
a half-finished lowball of rotgut neat. false
embraces, algid kisses, they all swirl
around in the almost-empty fifth, letting out
final gasps as they finally
die off. as midnight
approaches, again, it’s time to
start anew; a bottle of gin
cracked, it tastes like
old lies, old false promises, old
kisses that might have
meant something in a parallel dimension. nothing
makes sense but the booze in the lowball, and down
it goes, whirling in the brain till it eradicates all
the hazardous memories, creating space
for new moments that’ll never be
remembered.

BRANDED

It was a touch
that stained
me as
permanently
as the
pomegranate
did Persephone
and as I
climbed back
into
the womb
of that night
hatred pumped
through
my body
like blood.

Möbius Drip


Yes, the oppressed do
Suffer. And they dream
In their nightmare
Of some day when
They will be able to turn
The table, to oppress
Their oppressor. When
Dream becomes reality
And someday twists to
Now, they must understand
That the newly oppressed
Dream dreams of dread
And dead, dream of making
Their oppressor suffer. Yes.     

sonia
 
Beep, beep, beep
I smell flowers
I smell them every time we talk
There must be something about you
Whatever it might be
The way you talk, the way you think
That makes me think of fields
Of flowers
In all the colors of the world
Waiting for a hand to pick them
All the flowers this hand can carry
In all the colors of the world
And take them home
To fill a vase with water
And all the colors of the world
I smell them every time we talk

“When The World Comes Crashing Down”

The purple bikini bottoms of Pattaya Beach,
John Pilger’s “The Coming War on China” teaches me the history of the article,
Palm trees sway in my adolescent mind from napalm bomb winds.
Rather than read Heart of Darkness in school I opted for Apocalypse Now
Depreciating my grade on the test.
Later the article sits deliberately left behind in my Xi’an apartment
As a kind of sign,
Like the drawn sixties girls in a Thunderball poster,
Hearing her rolling luggage still echoing out the door.
It was named for Bikini Atoll in the Marshall Islands,
A nuclear testing site for the United States for over a decade.
The imperial yellow high-rise looks over centuries, millennia of city layers
The flying eaves of traditional Chinese architecture
Some sixteen blocks back
Amid bewildering density of urban sprawl,
One might feel a smidge of vertigo like Frank Olson. As
though not even the most towering, unmovable authorities,
Especially them,
Could ever be trusted. 

Our World Gone Wrong

If our world has gone wrong
How shall we survive it
Drink coffee as usual
Or start protesting somewhere

What actions to take
That matters the most
If votes can be altered by fraud
What effect may an individual have

How can we act together
If no one comes out as a leader
With credibility in moral
As well as ability 

Where can we get news
Reliable and trustworthy 
If the source speaks more than the content
No need to listen anymore

Coffee still warm on the table
Feet standing on the same ground
How could we survive
As our world gone wrong