Ninety-Fourth Entry

In the office, preparing for the new semester. Boy oh boy do I have a lot of work set out for me.



Here's my poem:

IRAQ

Homeless. It's time to pick up that bag
and make a winner. Every day
I read in the paper about how great I am.
I've developed computer hardware
to process this manly slaughterhouse
of journalistic data, and it's small enough
to fit in my esophagus. There's a new kind
of fishing hook in my esophagus, and it tears
the red tenderness of my muscles. Here I am,
writhing, wet, disenchanted. Just in time
for my meeting.

My mule senses the potential in me, emotions
bursting from my surfaces. He goes back inside.
He's the best editorial journalist I've got,
and even he can't explain his own inner workings,
dented as they are like a cheapo clock, to his wife
in the blue twilight of their cold bedroom.
When someone takes more than two minutes
to buy lotto tickets in front of me at the store,
I get so hot I need popsicle shoes.
Don't involve me in conversations about economics.
Lest you see my claws.

It all comes from those virulent decades
walking my beat in pizza delivery.
Sometimes you meet a wreck. Sometimes you catch
a tip. And sometimes the white cold air bends
your neck back when you stick your head out the window.
If you want a cure for senile dementia
just take a geezer and put him in my step-mother's
basement for one winter and make him drive my car.
Soon enough the old so-and-so will be eating solids,
making 8.50 an hour, after taxes, and if I'm lucky
he remembers he's my grampy. That way I get
my deposit back.