the neighborhood tweaker shuffles, waits
chews his fingernails, pops pimples
on his knees outside the old man’s house
next door. On his more put together days
he puts on the makeshift fuckboy,
tries to erase the age in his face
with turned ’round baseball caps
and intentionally ripped jean shorts
wearing paper thin: thin as what ties
together any hallucination, only to fade, to die
a civilization decivilizing — burning in August
like unwatered tomato plants,
this dream dead on the vine
this alarm sounding too close to time
Tag Archives: America
from DRIFTWOOD: a piece (waiting)
This is not a waiting culture. From every corner, prognosticators, practioners, preachers and gurus scream against it. Waiting is the antithesis of Now. Now is what we were raised sharpening our teeth on. Now is the feast we remember from childhood. Waiting is for the weak, they say. The early bird gets the fatter worm and the runt never gets the teat.
But I have given up the early worm. Given up the feast of Now. Here in the Present Now is all about waiting.
I am learning to wait.
america•na dis/till•d
& here it is: a series of annotations
left after the text was erased