Hang in There, Baby!

This is a poem I wrote for Dan. One thing I really liked about "Personism" is how having a recipient, an intended, a target even, how all that colors a poem and breathes a kind of crazy life into it. This one's for Dan, as I mentioned. I'd love to see you guys get off your duffs and write some new stuff dedicated to me, or each other. (...I seem to recognize all the poems I'm seeing so far... old stuff, guys? Whatsa mattter, not writing lately?)

Here it is:


HANG IN THERE BABY!
for Dan

I can still see you clawing up turf
red snarl curdling through the marigolds
of the suburbs in their manicured lawns and
my god, what a waste, those
shallow beds torn grass black nails
sheeting the street like a blackboard to their cars

Monday of the dead: lead foot spines cracked apostrophes
on the faces of the few red-faced living who stick out
so much they’re invisible, hands out like a line of question marks
rattling cups bones dice words like coins
at the scarecrows staggering with their nametags
HI MY NAME IS into the lurid whiskeybreath mouth
of Borders Hades Starbucks GUEST SERVICE ASSOCIATE

Grinding books stones teeth into a thousand days
spent folding coffee beans into origami cranes, do you miss
yourself as much as I do you articulate bastard,
shamble home past a thousand newspaper machines
tuned to a dead channel crying WAR! crying LOCAL ZOMBIE
SLAIN god damn the carnage crying POET EATS OWN BRAIN