CHECKOUT LINE

CHECKOUT LINE

Without an excess of time

for art, for poetry, for leisure

or that thing called "having a life,"
I prepare for work in the corporate world
by lining my eyes with indigo and kohl,
assuaging the tired bags with eyescream
made from the rarest coffee extracts
& expensive organic emollients—
really just chi-chi variants of Preparation Haich
(shhh! Lord Barrymore's "morning after" secret).

When I fill out my pale eyebrows with powder

the model Brook Shields is invoked

so that the customers will like me 

as they buy an excess of food

pre arranged, pre packaged, pre pre.

And yes, the blank space is invoked

like the fatal flaw in a Navajo rug.
No hyphen need apply
because that would suggest connection
and subject-noun agreement
when there is no ambiguity
when it come to the 1%.

The grand prix price fix is shrink-wrapped
into mortgages and loans, how mort—
death is invoked. A 99% accurate gauge.

I have few islands of time
in excess of five-minute increments
in order to write, before launching
my smiling self onto the public realm

so that they will buy buy buy for/from The Man.

No matter that I work for a good company

we are still all drones to/for The Man,

to staged commerce, to the treadmill of buying.
My teeth aren't quite white enough,
I'm considered a tad too old for this job.
Should I dye my hair and drink less coffee?
I desperately need a new bra and knickers.
And Freecycle just won't do. Not enough uplift.
But I've managed to hold off for years
because I am shocked by what people buy.

Not basic necessities or staples,
but a plethora of pre-packaged luxury items—

thinking that this is their just due
for having earned The Good Life.

But they are merely eating their way
deeper into debt.

My register beeps in demonic supplication 

& I am part of the system
I refused to join for ages.

I joined—not on my own volition—

but because I am afraid of the future,

of medical bills, of paltry retirement stipends,

of the erasure of what was once good,
the loss of the idea of security,
or chicken every Sunday, the family
sitting down to break bread together.

Instead, we are the lost pieces 

of a jigsaw puzzle called America

waiting for our exit line,

pursued by the bear of hunger
and want and need.

11/13/11

GETTING A LIFE

GETTING A LIFE

What won't wait is getting a life

the things you once held so dear

the house, the job security,

the wife and kids, living in the suburbs.

You are perusing the usual mirror

and one day it finally tells you the truth

and you find you've run out of time.

But you've grown accustomed 

to looking at yourself backwards 

in the mirror for so long, 

that the right reflection seems wrong,

no matter what the angle of discontent. 

Their voices at night through the window,

invade your dreams until you are left

with nothing but the seeds of sleep 

waiting to sprout in the grave 

repast of your choosing.

11/6/11