BARON MIND’S DANCE TIME

So, if the scandal ever hits the front page---
Yes, I kissed George Dubya, but he asked me first,
and God, he tasted awful!
But I just wanted to dance, and for that
I would plant my seed in Gandhi’s skull
just to see roadside weeds grow.
I would turn to Lucifer, say,
Pick up your fiddle, go back to Charlie Daniels
and give it one more go---I’d even listen
to that goddamn song again!
Gawd, give me the remote control!
I chiseled at the gaps in the best minds
of my generation until their synapses screamed,
More! More! Turn the channel!
Where’s the chips? Pass the salsa!
And get up and dance!
Man, I could really make them go…

RIDDLES
Static riddles the line
with indecipherable squawks
and hums, the empty-aired
ghost dance of some lost tribe
telling their story in furious,
crackling bursts, where
you have to read entirely between
the lines, while all I was calling
to say to you was, “I’m sorry.”
But I’m just not in the same place
I used to be.

APPLIANCE

On the forlorn formica counter is the old muttered toaster, which choked out toast
grounded in such personal detail, full of dirt, grubby roots and lost teeth,
that it became a presence in the kitchen itself,
a sharp-jawed repository of memory, willing to come alive, while you remained still
and everything around you moved too quickly. Funny, the things our minds will latch on to.

SIMPLE MATH

No, it’s like reverse psychology, but in reverse.
You’re not acting the opposite of what I’m saying
to make you become what I actually want you to be,
you’re actually becoming the opposite of what I am,
operating against both our best interests, thereby
creating a duplex-vortex (better real estate value)
where ample but affordable housing is made available
for every dissatisfied soul that ever gnashed
the watermelon rind of this realm, and wanted more.
It’s simple math. I’ll walk you through it.
I need you on board with this.

SHADOW DOWN

I walk through sunlight that would welcome
even the most callous gallows-man, past the first
crocuses and lilies of the season, gathered in eager garden pews, just unbending
their tender heads toward prayer.
I walk past the dormant up-thrust,
the quickening veins, sprung of the frame I have so long tried to hammer down,
roofless in the rain under all this sunlight, uncertain where to set my shadow,
even now.

BLIND GAME

Who are we without conflict, but slaves
to the cesspool of habit? Like the scorpion
hoarding the last hot rock in the desert,
like the seedling growth gripped beneath
the shell, like a three-card monty game
full of singularly empty vessels, set by
the blind dealer to an endless carousal?

SISYPHUS GETS A DAY JOB

In the old days, they would have called me
a paper-pusher, but now it’s only data; rows of shifting numbers and codes, weightless, mutable. It’s like an infinite ocean of light
I keep forcing through a spigot,
hour after hour, day after day.

But it’s OK. I get OT, full bennies,
and a little girl a few cubicles over
I’ve been putting the eye-fuck on.
It’s good to have a change
in your life, y’know? A new routine.
All things considered, I’ve never
felt so free.