epigraph

By Henry Cowles

a telegraph, phone lines,
cellular device, cellulite, old people,
ladies, hags, paper or plastic: bags
under your eyes, tired, lies, i hate
politics, think fast, mice, rats, laboratories,
frightening, ensign morituri, mortuary,
take me to the morgue -i'm bored with life,
your board, yer a thing of the past, psst,
overdone, gray meat, red meet, dead beets,
steady beats overhead, hampstead, rocksteady, think
tanks, wankers, pelicans, bird-feeders, the ocean,
movers and shakers, businessmen, powersuits, powerful women,
mulligans, i suck at golf, i can go off,
ralph ellison, rolfing, ralfing in your backyard,
vomit on par, girth, you're fatter, you're a fire,
fir trees, fodder, up in flames, christmas's bloodstains,
ecological masterminds, michael crichton, state of fear,
new years, egg nog, punch, everclear, final clubs, final tales
over. ladies,
gentlemen, be gentle, be friends of the animals, be PETA,
fight insignifance, fake caring, lake staring blue pupils,
rotted shin bones, study me, beasts, cornel west, best of the-
try me. trimesters, triathlon, try spelling greek, i'm a geek, too,
i can't do math, i can tie my shoes, i can't row crew, i'm not new,
i'm centuries old, i've been told before in books, you think
about me every other minute, every nine seconds for men, every
time you look around i'm at it, i'm bent over a fence staring
fields, field's medals, metal of honor, aluminum, coat
me up, lacquer, lack her, alone, solo, hans and the stargate,
starfire lounge. think twice,
what rhymes with orange, what rhymes with dead, done for?
no. you don't, you can't know, emerson knew, i grew an inch
before i knew you, i'm nine feet tall, i am paris, fool of troy,
hector-brother, breaker of horses, faker of orgasms, i can
defeat anything, i lay siege to belief, believe me
grieve for me gilgamesh, mesopatamia, syria, writing,
problems, letters, races, elders, betters? things, older, wiser,
wider, greater than, lessons, ledgers, chalk, books, balk,
the umpire looks at me, eye to eye, i for an i we stand, you and he,
look its me, im fading away, im a jungle, racing fast,
lush over blue hills, running west, gunning from you,
sprinter, life-support, running from games, running from
ecology and names, and classes, tube this or that, you can't beaker
me in a week, you're weak at the knees, i'm a thousand years old,
i'm older, i stretch, my branches, my bones, my brains cells
are finite, you're a diet coke, you're an 8-track, you're never
coming back, i'm here. you can't hear what hasn't been sold,
you go to tower, you live in the now, or what you mistake,
take classes, read, think, eat food, drink and forget and
lose your dinner, excuses, you lose it, life, bash your brains
out, you're two hundred thousand dollar brains, you wouldn't
wear a helmet, happiness, sunshine, alive for nine minutes
of braintime, a life time, stolen ideas, a millenia dream,
dream it and it's yours, read quotes, sail boats on rivers,
brown with mud, purple with blood, row out on nothing,
grow from the bed, rise from the dead, remind us,
cry aloud, be poetry, be words, be leaves,
been there, shunned that, tried nothing, eat, sleep, be honest.
bed and board and beads, beets, the earth, the sky,
he made the heavens, no i did, i tried, build me up
skyscrapers, a backscratcher, chicago is a massage chair,
he has a beard, he laughs a great laugh, he cries sometimes,
he is alone, and bigger than other things, people, diamond rings
bind me, gold, nectar, crete, islands, archipelagos, forgotten,
remember me. try me.