"make you look like a stack of dead people"

By Glenn Burns

this is going nowhere this morning,
I woke up sick and scrambled around
until I was awake, and here I am,
on the train back into the rotten core.
all jobs are like apples rot.
slavery exists large and tall
sit down and be small
make you look like
stack of dead people.
look busy.
find something to do.
6 second smile rule.
you’re that sandwich maker/ sandwich artist/ sandwich
demolitionist
you’re that video tape rewinder for all those people
who forgot
you don't dare fall asleep (although it's all you want
to do).
you take a spray of bullets
get back up
and keep walking
towards me

I’m just taking notes

unique capacities
dry up
numb feeling
feeling sunlight change everything
fall in the evening
the lights on
in a little town

I don’t believe in God
not existing

don’t be the weak one.
let them be the weak ones.
I’m ...

I can hear the dolphins
time is running out
time is running out

my walkman can beat up your walkman

never enough time
can’t buy the time back

narrow space trying to make you think
you deserve this
make you look like
stack of dead people.
make you think
you should be put
in a fucking box under the bed

Reality TV gives boring as shit people
something to talk about
gives them ammunition
gives you a headache
gives otherwise
untalented newspaper readers
some recognition
gives you more office culture
to plug up your ears to

in the rain. in the rain.
keep raining, I don’t care
I’ll never mow that lawn again.
I want the house to be lost in it
I’ll be right here
where you can’t find me
like a Masonic temple?
like a Masonic temple.

all the things I want
get lost in the mail

I don’t trust the train completely
it is completely
independent of my desires . . .

this germ goes to the
end of you
until it’s through
notice that headache
for what
it really is
(and embrace it...)

I think in different thoughts
like hyperventilation (code)
while you flake off
like a dead fern

poor man’s movie
remains in poor man’s head
yo, you kill off
the main star

you’re pulled off
the edge of the bed
by dead people

where I work
patience is an artifact

I insist though,
goodness
is still in your
stupid heart

where I work
small things
ruin a whole day
a whole life
you start seeing
nothing is
small anymore

I see Prince Myshkin as the subtle hero
the idiot as singular
as in one mass
all idiots blind to themselves

after everything
I have to sift through it
on the train
while a ¼ full
Coke bottle rolls
into everyone’s feet
someone picks it up
is this yours?
is this yours?
is this yours?
get that diseased shit
out of my face
(young Americans damn Americans)

you’re trapped in your anger
this is what I’ve become
because this is what I’ve become
I emulate
the result
of everything
unnatural
so that I’m close to it
because if I said what I really wanted
I’d be even closer
and I hope and pray
so that I’m closer
slice roaches out of my veins
so that I’m closer
drink water instead
because I’m closer

you learn your psychology
in the special way that you don't have to pay for text
books
and college courses.
but poor slaves in the future wrecked by desire create
their own demons and
accelerate to their doom. destruction of memory
of all that was pure, recyclable newspaper to destroy
the earth with more recyclable newspaper print - it's
the print
that's killing us, their sports columns, their bitter
movie reviews
(as if they could write anything other
than an effective tampon commercial). I can
write better with nothing in mind than they
can with everything in mind. and still I'm no where
no where I want to be.
I'm burning (like a stack of dead people)
until I say that I'm not