Unhappiness’
tendency to propel
The blunderbuss’
visual need to expel
This vehicle of culture to control ourselves
In our ears,
like tiny shoulder elves
The spiny Yucca’s outermost shell
Life’s blade exposes
soft lime green
flesh within; us
Softening of my own exterior, thus
My categories’ de-volution
Now, criticisms unaccompanying
A modern mouse trap evolution
Back track: To the beat of a barber’s razor strop
Saddle soap scent, hair cut day
Similar to: The sound of Beuysian tallow, frothing
A red crossed tonsorial parlor (display)
Cross roads of bent truths
will take years to relay
(Even Bohm missed the very first belay)
I stand quietly like the raptor
My mind floats in a saline isolation tank
in wait for my judgments to spring forth
(though not held at bay)
All around I see the unhappiness pallor
This fear of freedom that through culture binds
us
(Luckily for me, solvents have presented themselves)
With my second child Enzo,
Another huge space, my heart, freely given,
thus
He cannot ever unhinge the flood gates of my love
Soon, both son’s tides will converge
The quarter moon shadows lives forever lost,
but somewhere a new hidden struggle
in the birth canal of another
Brother imitates brother
We learn to act a certain way
Present day: I feel the bone spurs gaining
feet spreading, posture snowing
With the boys raising
dust around the man
The immediacy of my intention
has somehow parted
from my action
A neurological gap(span)
Eroding with age, deeper
The embankments steeper
I enter the tar pit of life
with such gratitude
No “shoulds” in the Damascus folds of my knife
Past struggles are just bird’s eyes in the grain
My turtle tattoos no longer sweat,
after decomposition they will remain
The brown tide grows with the increased rain
Now confronted with my
burnished knuckles,
cauliflowered ears and battered shins
Owning warped fingers and shoulders impinged
I’ve looked so forward
to this moment of presence
I encircle myself.
12/07/2000
John Perretti
