VOICEOVER

When I tell you I don’t sleep
I hope you’ll take me seriously.
I really am a walking shroud
most days. The undead in me
is the life of me, but not
for the life of me, however hard
I may try to make myself depend on it.
My clothes are mud and grass and mud,
or no, they’re really not. But you aren’t here
to see, and I wish you were, like I wish
a lot of things, including for more wishes.
So the genie inside me is a tracksuit,
red or blue with white stripes.
You get to decide what it means
when the philosophers say things
like “either Beauty is a real property
of things in the world or when we speak of it
we gibber.” The problem is nobody speaks
about Beauty anymore, and even if they did
I’d be staring into a mosh pit with my nose
bleeding all over the floor and trying
to find my way back into the Tsunami.
As far as I can see, neither the sky
nor any ocean has definiteness, order,
and symmetry, so Aristotle was wrong
about a good many things. Just so.
It was a different time and a different place.
Context does matter. And I should explain
the Aristotle reference, but I don’t feel like it.
I am wrong, too, about almost everything,
even in this context. Have you seen the Shasta daisies?
They aren’t Shasta daisies. They’re daubs
of white paint that any addict might snort.
O monotony! O too tired blinking outer space stars!
My addictions are too numerous to list,
but they’re always coming out of my fingers
and mouth, my nostrils and ear holes
and assholes and dick holes. You don’t need
to be embarrassed, the shroud shrouds all.
And the fact that I remember my mother
in the snow probably isn’t germane
to any of this or beer soap or succulents
or a skin bag full of hooks. Sometimes
my gill slits don’t work like they’re supposed to.
And when I hear my own voice, it reminds me
just how stupid I really sound and am, but
maybe everybody feels a little off
in the devices of their own associations.
I feel like running water where the running
never ends. That really is a pipe dream.
No pun intended.