what made me write

I was walking around in the
snow and came upon a
tennis court my landlord
collected garbage and then
sold it to folks too lazy
to collect their own I bought
a rocking chair from her once

anyway I was walking down
the Southwest Corridor
thinking about the fireworks
when all of a sudden shake
well before using the sky
opened and God said your
room is not clean your room
is not clean shut up the
Irish kid stole everything
and before that the Italian kid
and before that Romper Room

anyway the theater wasn’t
open it was dark and the
vomitory was cold but
we’d managed to sneak in
through the green room

so I was walking to the train
and my landlord calls after
me what’s with this no
haircut thing I thought you
hated the Beatles and it
was the night that most
of the folks on our block
set out their various trashes

and lo with great loudness
your room is not clean and
after that he told me not to
mess around with the
Italian kid anymore said he
wasn’t aware of any foul
language and to stop spitting

the snake in the vomitory
was cold and so was the
scene change but before that
I was thinking about how many
different colors a darkroom
could be this calls for
immediate action he said

I would have none of that
so I walked up the hill to the
arboretum where the leaves
were starting to turn a
brilliant brown and the
multicolored Frisbees were
omnipresent like the dogs
who chased after them it
was an identical spring day
like no other I walked up the
hill until I found a piece of
obsidian and kept it always
in my ashtray as a souvenir

the landlady would have no
more of that so I tromped up
the stairs and shared spit with
the fellow that just happened
to belying on my bedrock the
window to the tennis courts
frosted over and I couldn’t
tell who she was yelling at

all this time there’s dirt on my
floors you see and muck on the
walls and all I have to say is
we shared a bathtub okay I’m
not nitpicking but yes I am
nitpicking that too what with
the spiders and the cats who
jumped on the ironing board

so all this time here we are
on the cold floor next to a
dark stage not to mention
we forgot all of our lines no
matter how many entrances
and exits and lampshades we
wore on our frozen little
heads we was grown-ups now

not to mention that nobody
really forgot to juice up the
lightbulbs and so it was
carnage in one ear and out the
other warzones of unidentified
sentences and whatnot
carrying on like such without
adult consent it just so happened
that all I was trying to do was
filter some of it down into an
oildrop or an appropriate whorl

so I just picked up a pencil
and walked to the nearest
water-pond and sat down
to mull it all under and over
and scratched my head until I
yelled back at the landlady
and kissed the dead boy
so cold that the stagelights
crackled and fizzled
and pressed my fingers
so hard into the concrete
that I forgot about
remembering the other
maladies like traveling
too many miles just to
forget something only to
stab at the ink with my tongue

not to mention that since then
I’ve spent night after ice cube
scraping the wellspring
and sweeping every last
cobweb into another
lover’s doorjamb

return to SHAMPOO 4