Perl, I can’t talk to you
Situated as you are
At the crossroads of eternity
Gathered there among
The oblivion-suited ones.
My seeming callousness shrieks
And places no limits on the shame
It can endure.
Weeping and supporting sighs.
And no switch to be found
To shut down your long-playing stuff.
Perl, you’re like some sister of mine
Fouled by your own dark shit.
I don’t mean to offer disrespect
With scatological abrasion
But I’m watching you grow old,
Your brother’s passing just another reason
For that day to come.
That’s the thing with truncate nation.
We are just the little ones in blades of grass
We got those little legs no one wants
To carry us to those little places no one sees.
I’m not the one to come to about death.
You’ll find me difficult and harsh.
Why that is I just can’t say
But the whole thing makes me
Want to laugh and laugh
And envy those so truly rich,
The ones in metered prose soliloquizing
Beyond the graves we dug.
No dirt’s been done. They’re freer than
A migrating bird and laughing at your family stuff.
Go on, get away. Do like me.
Deposit it all packed in tight
In some big box beneath your bed.
There is no need to hold your father’s hand,
Not when he put you in the fractured state he did.
Wake up to your own hurt, you jackass fool.
Out of that dark old room.
I’ll be right here waiting outside the door
When you do.July 2003