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Occurs in nature only in the vicinity
Of an ebbing tide of piss
And beyond that, an ocean of piss.
A man hurls his phone into it
Where it bobs and sinks
Through undulating waves of piss.
Spiny fish who live deep in the piss
Where it is night forever
Avoid it. It finally settles
Silently onto the silty and pissy
Ocean floor. The man
From before buys a new phone
With a superior camera but
Identical memory. He takes a selfie
Under a piss rainbow.
Is so stupid. It’s
Basically an insult
To your forebears,
Who did little other
Than work hard,
Maybe taking a break
To go to war. You
Went to grad school
And got drunk a lot
And maybe accidentally
Said something true.
You pay close attention
To your peers,
Whom you hate.
In an event as terrifying
As an unexpected eclipse
A poet can achieve
Success, becoming
The proverbial unicorn
Who drives on others.
Who gazes wryly
From a dust jacket.
Who divides their time
And also writes prose.
It’s like your life’s work becoming a meme
That goes viral
And gets incessantly referenced by campaigning politicians
In their transparent attempts to seem “folksy”
It’s like writing your name on water before that was cool
It’s like eating ribs in a public bathroom
Or ironic cannibalism…anywhere
It’s like only being able to express your feelings
Through a million layers of irony or in a ska song
Or donning a beret in order to nod thoughtfully
It’s like taking a vow of poverty because it’s the only way
To not have your opposition instantly commodified
By the capitalist entities you are seeking to destroy
Which is awesome and righteous and all
But you’re unsure about staking your existence
Entirely on moral authority as it relies heavily
On others witnessing it and answering its call
By acting in kind…
It’s like quitting drinking every day
First tattoo, neck tattoo
It’s like inheriting several billion dollars
And constantly flying all over the world
And indulging every selfish wasteful whim
But then waking in a cold sweat one dark midnight
Thinking, what if the world isn’t actually ending
It’s like you got them
But never know when to smoke them
It’s like gazing over a field at sunrise
And in the golden fog a slender fawn takes a dump
It’s like riding in a hot air balloon and feeling nothing
It’s like getting hopelessly tangled in power lines and feeling nothing
It’s like feeling nothing
Which is like fronting an experimental noise band for 50 years
Then finding out what you really like is silence
