“It was as though Time suddenly lost patience, or had an anxiety attack.”
Samuel Beckett, Murphy
*
Paranoid Delusions in the Age of Information
In my shivering legless bed
I hear them coming
Inflating me with dread
They, shouting,
Tear down windowshades
I hear them coming
Each drowning the other out
In diagonally-striped neckties
I hear them coming
Bass speakers, gas pumps
Rich men running in
Birthday suits: not a pound to spare
They’re coming. I hear.
*
Poem Before Smoking Four More
I light the last one
of the night at (a.m.)
three: twenty-four(evermore)
*
Headline Exploitation
Looking around the room
for someone to talk to
(and with and hear from)—
Patchen?
War and 1940′s
dialogue a la
mode—
Joan?
Your sunny west
sends me yearning;
never mind the burn-out—
I can’t stand an
Accent
I can’t
Sleep as forty
Winks
Begin a dance
Again
In cans
Crammed with soft
Drinks—
Weekends
Just another
Word for delude—
And:
“Better luck next time,”
Bellows the ringing dinging song—
