Poem

It was late. Or it was early. it was somewhere in between. the sky had taken on that scared chicken look with clouds and everything inside out or thereabouts. Sometime later I would recall this as a red-letter-day. The shutters tight; a hoot a holler. No one was in the mood to look.

I have never been there, but I have been through there several times. a few as a child and maybe one or two as an adult. who remembers such things. never even tasted the ground, only smelled the air: something like sulpher: old steel towns still reek of it. the sky goes orange at night from the blast furnaces, still.

from the window you can watch an old man make his way up the street. he's always there; walking but making no progress. you want to wrap your wings around him, and shuffle him into your cage, which you have just now noticed blooming in the centre of the room.

To do

· Lockheed Martin® nuclear waste right up the road. They'll vote on it Monday in the House.

· Dow® chemicals on the lawn. Dog. Warn kids.

· Monsanto® insecticides on the tomatoes, they're all cuddling together in the low-density polyethylene bag in the crisper. Wash tomatoes.

Don't look at the Styrofoam box spacers in the basement.

Black exhale of Peabody Energy® blowing in from the West.

Mixing with the rest of the Respirable Particulate Matter (PM10)

swirling in solution all around you.

Must Breathe

The cul-de-sac with its spiderweb of cracks

filled up with that chemical, durable, heat-resistant

crude-oil-based sealant they use. Must

· Go to Staples® Wal-Mart® Target® Sam's Club® Office Depot® Radio Shack® Safeway®

Dollar Store®

You'll get low-density polyethylene bags to put shit in.

Don't forget:

· Garbage Bags. Get the ones on sale at Safeway®

· Coupon.

· Take the **Chevy®

Its polymer bodywork and consoles, its polyisoprene tires, polybutadiene mounts,

polyisobutylene tire-linings, hoses and belts-just

nestle the polystyrene egg cartons safely in the vinyl back seat

along with the disposable Rubbermaid® containers, polyurethane stuffed

lumbar pillow, polyethylene OJ cartons and K-Mart® kid's toys, polyethylene terephthalate Diet Coke® bottles (with polypropylene threaded caps).

Just remember

· **Chevy needs an oil change.

· Jiffy Lube® coupon.

· Relax your shoulders.

· Breathe deep.

· Drive relaxed. Relax brow. Unclench teeth.

Relax into polyamide shirt.

Breathe. Look out polycarbonate windows

with their ethylene propylene window channelings

look, mainly

Well,

at other people's cars.

Need to:

· Relax your neck. Let your jaw go slack.

· Meridians, Deepak shockras, Chopra™ chi, flow, let it all flow.

Sweat.

Toes and feet need to sweat into polyester socks

in Nike® trainers

with ethylene vinyl acetate midsoles and styrene butadiene outersoles.

Go ahead and safely operate your tenite propionate gas and brake pedals.

· Breathe deep, tighten abs. Remember:

Straight back.

Drive home

polymethylmethacrylate blender under the sink

polypropylene ketchup bottle on the plastic tray on the door of the fridge

the shampoo and conditioner bottles in the plastic shower

39 Tupperware® containers with 36 tops in the cupboard*

polyvinyl chloride deck chairs out back under the plastic umbrella,

polyamide Sony® TV and AIWA® speakers in the family room

polyvinylidene chloride Saran Wrap® in the kitchen drawer.

*Missing three tuppertops. Why?

Ask Susan.

· Groceries

One thing becomes an other

Instincts

The cat is chasing a moth the moth is chasing
the light or circling it and the cat keeps
knocking him off course.
What is it with the hour and me
inside it watching and thinking
about the next and the next and
the next and the empty chair
where the cat was just sitting
before the moth
woke her up,
reminds me that I am not alone.

God made heaven and earth in the dark.

Rational Functions (from Dream Stories)

1.
Suddenly, he is here, sitting at a table, an uncrumpled piece of paper pinned by his elbows. Chin in hands. A benign hum playing the chambers of his heart.

Nothing seems to mean anything. Like he woke up in a dream and all the familiar things of his life are but holograms to that same benign hum. It looks like his kitchen, with the large round oak table, the silver mermaid painting, the shelving with its series of international cookbooks. His things. But what does that mean, and who is he, anyway?

Something startles him. A fat moth flying around the lamp in the center of the table, bumping into and off of the orange lamp shade, as orange as the setting sun.

He looks down at the paper. A drawing of a raven on a naked branch. A penciled list of names and numbers. A graph highlighted by peaks and valleys and ending with a phrase written in his handwriting. “The asymptote ends here.”

He speaks the phrase out loud, as if to summon an anchor, but he trips over the word “asymptote” and an ancient argument rocks through him like a tide. Slow motion violence against slick glass sand. Inherited footprints dissolving. He looks at his hand and breathes into the palm. “Is this life?” The moth like a soft motor that burns without fire. Humming the air.

“Or is it a trap,” he says suddenly aware of this distinct possibility.

He balls up the paper with a disgust he doesn’t understand.

“Where’s the definition,” he says, as if its buried treasure he’s asking about, or misplaced keys, or a constellation he was taught about in some lost childhood. Things to be found.

He walks over to the wood stove, which has burned down to just a few barely living coals, and tosses the paper inside.

A smoldering. A sly tongue of flame issues from the coals and consumes the paper. He feels a vague something in his chest like an itch followed by a purr and nothing. He looks around the fireplace for wood to add, but there is none, only the crumbs of wood spread out over the carpet like the leftover feast from a passing army of termites.

He hears the phone ringing and wonders if it just started or if it’s always been ringing. He knows himself well enough how his mind can forget about the world around him even as he studies the details of each crack and the hue of every halo. He smiles and the ringing continues and the smile fades upon the feeling like he’s missed an important class, the most important of his life and now because he’s missed it, his life can never really start.

“Don’t stop ringing,” he calls out, searching for the phone. “Where did I leave you?” he says, unable to locate with his ears, it’s direction. He looks on the futon against the wall, under the futon, next to the Conga drums, on the counter with the mason jar filled with quarters and the phone ringing and ringing and ringing…

“The answering machine”, he fumes, throwing pillows, knocking over bookshelves, toppling spice racks “there’s always a machine…” turning over the couch, “that answers…”

2.
Time passes the way time passes in a dream. The invisible phone ringing like the phone is nowhere and everywhere all at once, the walls, the ceiling, the floor, the air.

Like everything is a hologram of the ringing.

Furniture reduced to rubble and kindling, the television caved in, the stereo beaten to a pile of metal shards. Sawdust in his haggard beard, his knuckles bruised and scabbed over, his breathing like a clogged vacuum tube.

He returns at last to the wood stove, remembering the paper with its graph of peaks and valleys. The raven, the names and numbers.

“If only I hadn't thrown it into the fire, if only I had learned to read it, I might have been able to… ”

But there is nothing more to say. He climbs inside the stove, rear-end first, enduring with a grown through clenched teeth, the cracking of his spine, the sharp light of effort bursting through his back and spidering through his entire body. The x and y axis bending at the waist, to almost join as one.

“There are no rational functions,” he groans at the merciless ringing, and closes the iron door.