Unmanifesto

here I go again with one more
stubborn mumble, the endless
song of myself sung to
myself. The difference

between this cloaked dance
and mental illness is
finally no more than the actualization
of publication, or not.

Rubbing up against the air
the voices congeal in the shimmer of wood smoke
so quaint elsewhere, but here as common
as these ants crawling across offended
consciousness, eating attention and mood.

Fragrances die in the exhausted sinuses
that no long bother sounding any stuffy alarms
but just cope in disconsolate silence.

And so the sun, the forgotten soft air
and twenty minutes until the Lakers game.
I blame Paul Newman and his daughter
for making these infernal oreos,
crunchy chocolate, sweet whiteness
that I consume in guilt and anger at my
powerlessness. Simple projection, of course,
though fattening nonetheless.

Yes I remember
when every verse I committed was a manifesto,
a festival of manifesting, a manliness
of making and shouting. Now
my pen is inscribed with multicolored
repetitions of my dentist's name.
These lines may still be my revolt
against cringing, yet evidence also

of failed contact with the world
I used to announce I would renew.
I spin in the circle of blizzarding,
extracting abstractions from the din
in the pale effort to cope. Cope means

enough peace to last as long as a breath.
Crisis ensues, CNN will sing it into
inconsequence, we will all feel bored
and better. Trouble is spectacle,
other people are too real to see,
they're better on TV.
Canada Dry Ginger Ale.

I sing the body pathetic,
the fallacy of leaves.

2-26-02