June 13, 2017Goya Could Have Painted This
Next door my neighbor
massages his car with a mass
of diapers and a fussy muscle.
Fuels it spoon by spoon
with wealthy gas to perfume its exhaust.
Works his keyed-in personality
to soothe a herd of ignition sparks.
Drives his fantasies about his doubts
as demons round a rosary.
Trees in his hands are branchless pets.
Roses succumb to the passion of fence.
He pockets blocks of deadlocked stats.
Calculates estates in a sea of distress.
Stuck in logic to secure mere fact,
his speech adds anchor to the ship he subtracts.
I would rather eat hooks and electricity,
chew a quarter mile of chrome,
than live in this slum of prosperity,
but wherever I am Mr. Everywhere goes.
Goya could have painted this
but not with a brush.
Goya would have stretched our skull
to the dull diode glow
of a Sony canvas, then broadcast
our monstrous success as Pavlovian
reflex eating more resource
to fill its abyss.