2:03 A.M.
So the cat snores for me–in and out, her blind head aside the throw pillow;
even scratches here and there to remain present, to be safe in her sleep or her dream or where ever she’s gone once all the pizza has been eaten and the neighbors have stopped buzzing their doors…traffic swills along Frederick Douglass — the boulevard I’ve walked many times in my dreams but never in daylight; the clarity of all that has not happened is to brutal
like a canker sore
on that first date
or when you realized that life wasn’t unfair — it was simply whatever you wanted it to be, but as your darts fell off the charts and your bullseye became paying the week’s bill just to stay in the race
you realize you’ve lost long ago; I mean I lost long ago
I played
I stayed
I made
the
game
So many are good at playing —
so why the long face and dry mouth?
The cross eyes and gray hairs
The stammered mouth, crazy stares
all the errors of my elders I have become
gluttonous,
flatulent,
dizzy
and un-focused
even my loins have diced and broken in two, cant decide which way to flow or grow or go–
there’s no center here, anymore, I have
no
center
i am a bursting little rumble in my stomach
a curvy rusty scythe in my belly
a face faked out of functioning harm and forced charm
and nothing
absolutely
nothing
real
as far as plans or projections or descriptions or prescriptions
as far as the ring will bow
and distend
as far as the bell
will ring
cause man knows
it certainly won’t toll
It takes a solid arm to toll a bell
all i’ve left are a few inches of finger and stained skin
that only wished it knew
the comfort
of a glove
— from the chapbook, Lying Meat.
Dennis Leroy Kangalee 