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Ron Androla

guilt


i shld always go on weekends

down to new castle

& see my mother

rather than write poems.

i haven't talked to my sister

lately, checked in, see

how things are going.

i never know what my daughter

& son are really doing,

& i say that in a cowardly way.

i wish i had cash to give them.

oh christ,

now i'm considering

unpaid bills,

the whole system

of work & pain &

hospitals.   maybe

i've surrendered

against all odds

instead of being

the alamo,

being a

man with

fear,

but with

convictions.

my mind is mostly air

with thoughts like

flying

spider

monkeys --

little whooping

fuckers.

what does a

poem matter

in light

of a rainy may

saturday morning.

weak, sick,

i need coffee,

smoke, all the poisons

i use to sustain

what disguises

my words & my

silence



denial


a man's life

is always false

experience.   what happens

back then is happening more now.

that's where he's at, slammed into

a telephone on a saturday, & he's

got it all wrong in a mixture of

memory & ego batter, plus,

emphasis on plus,

a shitload of beer.   he's

the goddamn king of

earth.   he dreams aimee

mann will save him with a

song, elevate his kingly

face into heaven

like a superimposing

hologram over

god's severe, bearded mug.

it's ok to expand the fat past,

he tells himself.   what else

do we do with dead time,

but paint it up,

fluff vacuous feathers,

dream beyond factual

edges, name

reality like a dog,

& re-live retarded

years.   a man can

certainly

be a fuck-up

too,

twist into

don quixote,

charge

on his ass,

on his dumb donkey-dog

clyde,

at what isn't

even metaphoric.



lobotomy me


an asian tsunami washes over pearl-colored beaches,

grabs over bushes & concrete walls, cracks all glass, all

mirrors, & artifacts of human activity are mixed in pieces

thru muddy, dangerous water.   my eye pearls bleed, vein.

i'm a twisting smoke ghost, liquid air, squid glob hanging

on a doorknob.   my mouth is a small portion of swamp,

caved.   i talk to myself sometimes.   sometimes i scream

inside my inaudible head.   profane passages of rage.   i'm

a drowned man with the machete-hacked neck of a giraffe

& an asshole full of drenched flowers & seaweed kelp.   nature

hates us.   perhaps blissfulness in eden amerika persists a

century, then it's huge disaster after disaster, then calm

like torture of time.



a man


a man is maggots.

a man is ash sand.

a man is a vigorous animal

caged by human thought.

a man punctuates

life.   a man investigates

a bedroom of horror

where blood gleams

all walls of bone.   a man

discovers silence

in the center of a poem.

a man is a molecule

jammed thru the gases

of jupiter.   a man

drinks bourbon.

a man knows nothing

matters in a longer run

of time.   a man is a seed

pod.   a man is a card game.



HANGOVER ODE


beam.   straight shots.   pieces

of my teeth are breaking

off -- if you cld be my tongue,

nightcrawler in moist grass


& scattered rocks -- &

my dentist on vacation

all next week.   cannot

drink beer, nothing cold


or hot.   life is not a

kind experience

with all this goddamn

karma circling like hawks.


mindfuck hawks,

hungry, vicious &

biological.   poor

nude worm of self,


helpless,

eyeless.   bourbon

breath mess of

situations -- you


know what a tree is?

me.   i'm a budding

red maple, chittering,

full of morning wrens.


thin sap

is sour

in the center

of my throat.


i'm a monolith.

a breakable monolithic

biped who only

moves falling


down

into a

pyramidal

pile of wood & leaf,


an

exploded

tree

in a room.


in a chair.

smoking

curls of

smoke.


[Index]

Thunder Sandwich #26 - Summer/Fall 2005