On getting out of debt and being young enough to feel my legs: Part One

WE are debtors yes. But to this thing/institution/corporation/body made of people punching clocks and taking home tender/beneficent provider of funding for the unknowing, let our chains be broken. You and me, girl, let's loose the chains the bind. TD Jakes-style. All forceful and sweaty and with gold chains around chubby fingers.

We are not there yet. But we will be. and OH! the handsome Valley(OH!) that awaits. greener pastures for our grubby green hands.

I made a payment and 20,000 dollars on two accounts became zeros, one positive, one negative, now even. It was an easy moment built on a year or more of moments of another kind. It's an odd thing that paying for an education teaches so much more than the endsum of the education itself. Let me learn this lesson well so as to not tread lightly for you and our unborn children.

Let me be a debtor. A pickpocket is always a pickpocket, Fagin and the Artful Dodger attest. But let my debts be for treasures in the great beyond where my Father and brother and savior wait for me.


...
That's a heart that you made
That's a heart and the both of you made it
That's a heart that you made
And I won't rest until I break it
It’s the histoire de la family
It’s the histoire de la femme
It's the histoire de la family
And I won't rest until I forget about it
I won't rest until I don't care
I won't rest until I forget about it
I won't rest until I don't care

Je t’aime the valley
Je t’aime the valley OH!!!
Je t'aime the valley
I am an orphan de la valley
And I won’t rest until I forget about it
I won’t rest until I don’t care
And I won't rest until I forget about it
XIU XIU, I Luv the Valley, OH!



[clearer exposition will follow, someday]

IN RE: Bill Cassidy

I’VE GOT 2 PLASTIC HELMETS. I USED TO HAVE 1


we roped pots & pans to our calves galloped
east then west mock trials we are guilty in
honesty we fall down crunked on some-
thing speedy & unpronounceable he’s jamican
not african i think of you constantly i stutter
in buffoonery boyhood forebear superintendent thighs

she knows my ticklish why I tote in I’s
panic attack during the matinee
we soak our officialdom in honey mustard
pigroll belly-up in it cheers to backwash
i pet the dog & the dog barks twice
my hands attach to arms that’s what they tell me
the lesbians blare big band across the street
peddle walkie talkies framed stamps of elvis
elvis slept w/ 1000 ladies before Pricilla. died.

i use street signs as monkey bars
undergarments tophats
i am merely putting on my pants

the contractor plows driveways
lifts shed with metal claw
thanks
cuticles pushed down the roof meat pens

i am in a corner
in the cornerstore
begging
saying hello

It happened fifteen minutes ago. the waste of what we've created now outweighs the things we have left to make. In 2005 the United Nations commissioned a scale and we've all been waiting. they were even, their weights exactly the same, but only for a moment. Everyone held his breath and her breath, wondering which side would win. A pin prick could be felt and heard from kualalumpur to the muskox herds in the arctic. the arms of the great machine holding on like samson, blind in the temple courts, holding columns. Every one watching the scales, even.

I, knowingly but pretending unaware, emptied a candybar wrapper its contents and tossed it on the pile. At first a buzz as the levers of the great scale began to shift. then the creaking as it registered what we all knew would come. Our great inventions, every one, now only marked by the trash that their hands have made.

Now everyone knows my name. Now everyone knows my face.
That's him. He's the one who tipped the scales. I wonder if he knows his carbon footprint now? I couldn't imagine the kind of trash he's seen. And to not even care!
Never mind the candybar was free and I just finished first.

I am now him. The one who tipped the scales.

YOU ARE a series of numbers, we all are.

that has been said before and by too many.
I am not, but I was once. only numbers, and only 1.
but now, no longer numbers, only a heart beating back and forth
back and forth from you and to you.
and we are no longer numbers, but
if they were to count us, we would equal one. all of our numbers
turned to flesh and bone. crackling and flowing viscous
from here to home and back again.
i run to you, but now on a treadmill.
and you're there too. my destination sleeps by my side.
and ours is in the clouds, a thousand miles off.

and now there is no longer planning
hoping
wishing
wanting.
there is only living. and what a living there is.



in the black room, the light
watch the seabird fall
real love it finds you somewhere
with your back to it
Beach House/real love

O LITTLE ONE

the tiniest hand holding so many hearts.
and mine is there too.

Every day is like today, six decades long
In a few years I will be yours completely
Have you not been mine already?
I have, but I will be. Wait until our skin, with needle and thread is tied up tightly as an umbrella and your hair and my hair are arms reaching for the ends of the

It was always going to end like this, you marrying me and me marrying you.
Every thing you say is a conversation with you, every single thing
And now a conversation with you, every nothing and everything said is to or for or at or with or around you.
Maybe he is an angel and every angel comes with a fold up lawn chair
And cigarettes.
And these spider legs inside my face are an itch scratching an itch waiting for you to wake up next to me and to grip the edge of a mattress putting your feet down to walk down our redbrick hallway to the place where our bodies grow
Every day is like today. Today is six decades long.

And babies wanting for food, a baby who did. My heart is broken for bellies smaller than mine.

maybe yes, maybe less?