Poem: Untitled 10/03/09

Untitled: 10/03/09
***
to bend the untiring ear that listens,
you want to stand in the wind and scream silently,
mouth open as if
you would swallow the moon whole
and become something for coyotes to sing about.
why mourn the loss of things you never had;
when opportunity knocks, only to apologize
that it's mistaken your door for someone
more important, more deserving,
and wouldn't you feel better giving them a handout
like dharma-bum wannabes
who live their entire lives
in a state of mind
that they call "Zen," but is as easily achieved
by pharmaceutical accidents and moldy cheese?
something like a fever crawls just
below your eyebrows, behind your eyes,
an animal thing that crept down
from the aurora borealis
to lay its eggs in your frontal lobe.
when the temperate rainforest changes its garb,
trees shedding green for scarlets and yellows
that burn away so rapidly,
and you hate the sight of clocks
and feel the eyes of something stalking you,
as it eyes that connection between brain and spine
where the animal and the archetype meet . . .
that thing might be a poem with a dagger in its teeth,
or the last breath, last drink, last cigarette, last
sharp inhalation of breath for a scream
you'll never give birth to.
it doesn't matter. the impossible never happens
when you're waiting for it.
there's no recliner in which to view apocalypse,
and CNN isn't going to bring you hourly updates
on the burning of human souls
as you reach for the remote to switch
to a more comfortable channel.
consumers are a commodity, just something else
that is ultimately consumed.
autumn is here, the children locked in schools,
men and women locked in jobs
where fake fall foliage is decking their stalls,
a failed attempt at levity in a place
where the counting of heavy metals
only increases the gravity,
and the moon is getting closer every night,
but the coyotes are blind
and only the poets can howl.