in the lapping ripples of our leaking lives
DRIVING THROUGH THE HEART OF KANSAS,
KANSAS DRIVEN THROUGH MY HEART
Holy shit, we really are in goddamn Kansas, Toto
we've been brought here kicking by the sneers of
our hustling peers, the girls who couldn't remember
how to pronounce our last names, going Pica
Pickeri
Pikkeel
when the bed was liquid with
passionless flames, the best friends
who stole our cars and mowed down our haunting lusts
in unbuckled fits to fuck our women,
the swine begging money to buy condoms and Vaseline
and pink light bulbs and six dollar wine, the bosses
who pushed our arms down into grease
and swill and acid and intestines every day,
the teachers who red-penned our barely conceived dreams
and held our heads beneath the rusted wheels of reality,
the nuns who grew too jealous of God and worked
the will of Christ across our asses
We've
been cast out of Nod and flung from Central Park West
into the corn fields of dull fiends who carry scythes
to the barn dance and cleave through the dirty overalls
of dainty necks and tattooed purgatory
We'll bark in the darkness and terrorize
the coy moon
gnawing bones of regret, raging against chew toys,
casting runes at the feet of blind muses
drawing a bead on our foes
doing all that we knew we could and would
good boy, Toto, good boy good boy good boy good boy good
She's been sitting there by the swings staring at me
for the last three hours
one of us waiting for the brute to break free
she's got the kind of gaze that can cut a chest deep enough
to spot it inside, coiled beneath the muscle
of my church volunteer work,
tissue of donations, bone of my good boy intentions
visiting the children's leukemia wards
crying each week for the bald kids who've died
We're almost there, we're getting there
she's got the right bait out now as she closes her eyes to the sun
tilting her jaw to the perfect angle, vaguest hint of a grin
once I stand up we'll be on our way
on the run, she won't even need to flick a wrist
or cock a finger
to show me which direction to go
she'll have a husband she wants done in, a boss
without the proper respect for her ass and her raises, a mother
who eats too much yogurt to die by the calendar
Once they're all gone, left out here maybe, afterwards,
one hanging in each swing
and there's only her and the nothing
inside me let loose
believe me, when the smiles are affixed and the scotch poured,
her fingers stroking my hair, the popgun .22 in her laughing hand,
neck the scent of a rose
and we go in for that first kiss, and finally, at last
we're nose to nose, and she visits the face she could see
but did not meet in me before
we're there
as her gun is slapped to the floor
and we have all day and night to play
and in the morning, you bet, she'll choose the noose
Look where I'm pointing
up there beyond the bridge where the yellow eyes
of my uncles light the cigar shops
while they smoke and demean the prophets,
and talk of butchers on Queen's Boulevard
and in Buchenwald, Mussolini
my two grandmothers are buried in the same grave
with one of the granddad's, it was cheaper, the cemetery
just down the block over the train tracks, make a right
the man is sandwiched, they used to joke about jealousy
and paying visits, passing Amaretto back and forth
sometimes dressed in gray, sometimes white,
still hunched over from the sweatshops
I've been watching them for weeks
in the mist, the rain, kicking sleet from my feet
wondering why they don't get a move on
all of us just grinning and leering until dawn
I used to feel wet towels on my forehead
spoonfuls of soup on my chin
where will they put me, once I'm out of here
maybe I can fit in with them, push aside the dust
ask the ashes if it would be fine
laying there for all times, with this much empty room
we can all make it in, my mother, my cousins,
three aunts, my brother and his kids, the goldfish,
my sister and her nurses, dig up Dad and bring him on over,
the cat with bad kidneys, grab the milkman too
lots of magazines and small talk to pass the time
You can see the unnamed saints laughing on the walls
Christ with that look in his eye
reviling the livings, staring back
slipping off their skins and running, wet and peeled
it's a party, a family reunion
who the fuck brought the Liberace records?
maybe they won't let me in, my guts not good enough
too much disdain and not enough real pain
no whining allowed, the cat just took a piss
I was always afraid I didn't have enough soul
to match their lives, the thickness of their arms
and hides
and get down into the same hole
go, go and sit in a cemetery without any tombstones
it's easy to show your teeth
when you haven't any lips, too hurt in the dirt
at home all alone in potter's field