DEAD BEATS

Summer came suddenly this year.
Like a bird of prey
Swooping down.
Or young death.

The air breeds lust.

Sunlight bounces off the streets
Like a wet tennis ball.

Evil walks quietly
Blowing smoke rings
Through the luminous haze
Of the still-born day.

Heat rises slowly
Like the chronic anxiety
Of the eternally hopeful.
(end)_

In memory of you, long dead,

I hang in this yet unsung balance.

I know you what you are

So you, in return, acknowledge my skill

at seeing through your facade.

Lend me your eyes, dear friend,

I shall present you with a paper ticket

(which you must immediately give back for safe-keeping).

I may be cracking up inside, but they still believe my image.

Switch the gas heater off now, let’s save

our pennies, old friend, empty wallets ahead.

We cannot slumber anymore,

our dreams are too expensive.

The world is too costly for us,

don’t make me pay.

Will you be satisfied if I flay my sea-salt skin for you?

Tear my organs from my body in honour of you?

Whitely bleed to ash in imitation of you?

See, I splay my corpus upon the floor, I kneel,

My young knees creaking for the untimely dust.

He must implore his Jealous God for

an extension on his overdraft.

old hands

have seen so much.

ragged gloves with

jagged bones

hold a face with

sunken fingernails

and make sounds

like paper.

You will become way less concerned with what other people think of you when you realize how seldom they do.

—David Foster Wallace