Heart Trouble
A poem for the still-living
If you think you’re gonna strafe me with your highfalutin barbs...
Guess again.
If you think you’re gonna chafe me so I cannot burn some carbs…
Guess again.
If you hope to keep me flailing with your herky-jerky moods,
So callous, so Kantian — so thick with egocentric foods…
Guess again.
For what we have, it seems to me, is a failure to disconnect
The twines of our engagement, the tentacles of disrespect.
The world has been torn asunder by the sweeping of a broom
That blew butterfly winds to hurricanes, Hong Kong lights to gloom.
Now who am I to call you and leave a message such as this
When we know you’ll just reciprocate and hasten my abyss?
Should we get all down and dirty, should we summon Navy SEALS
To forestall what’s surely coming, to dislodge our cement heels?
Our love is a workman’s breakfast that goes rancid in his truck
While he’s bonking a lonely lady who’s married to some schmuck.
See, in distance we find solace, but in closeness we find pain.
What better proof can I offer that our bond is inhumane?
I understand I “calmed your nerves,” set you on “the road to growth.”
I’m not some turnpike toll taker of the Hippocratic Oath.
I’m only what I’ve been to me, which to others seems a hack.
Now I feel like a man set free, please no longer call me. Jack.
