not quite weller

hello i am a nothing salesman
i sit alone and wait for endings
once a year i suffer the old folk
it's always good to know where you're heading

that's entertainment
that's entertainment

at age twelve i was a brilliant young lightbulb
by eighteen a pock-faced nightmare
thirty-five and now i know nothing
it's just the wattage that's what i'm saying

that's entertainment
that's entertainment

treatment

The camera begins on a pane of glass, looking from the inside out, and a wet hail weakly taps the window. Outside can be seen a dour winter, snow on the ground, a northern mountain town. Cars move slowly down the streets, early day, everything gray in the pale gray light. In fact it is Christmas.

As the camera pulls back into the room, turns, we can see we are in a bedroom, a man's room, nothing on walls, wooden floor, the kind that echoes too loudly beneath one's heels in the still of night. A pile of clothes in the corner, work boots, a bed and a cluttered bureau. Upon it change, scraps of paper, receipts pulled crumpled out of pockets, a lamp and several mostly-empty beer bottles.

A man sits in the bed fully clothed. Jacket and boots on, waiting. He holds his ski cap in his hands, looks out the window. Lucas Raley.

the kid

Another man was coming up from the jakes and they met halfway on the narrow planks. The man before him swayed slightly. His wet hatbrim fell to his shoulders save in the front where it was pinned back. He held a bottle loosely in one hand. You better get out of my way, he said.

The kid wasnt going to do that and he saw no use discussing it. He kicked the man in the jaw. The man went down and got up again. He said: I'm goin to kill you.

-- Cormac McCarthy, Blood Meridian

fourth dirty monday

Fourth dirty monday.
washed up and old
before the washbowl
the dull razor pulls,

catches,

at last acquiesces
and cuts.

You've always stuck by me,
my skin,
today as I again
abrade you,

let that not go unthought of.

let it not go unsaid

what

if we
were the only
three things
in the world.

you,
me
and the reflection of me
at 6 am,
the fourth dirty monday.

how to survive in this world and not even know it

[fragment]

When she touched me
I couldn't stand it,
as if missing layers of skin,
where had I put them,
I love you
she said, she kissed me, I said,
Ow.

Outside the mist lay over the city,
the mist always lay over the city,

Charles, she said
where are you going

In the park I saw a girl stand up
and her bottom held the imprint
of her seat,

In certain ways
even a picnic table
can want you,

Charles,
in certain ways
you are the only thing I know.

am I waking up at all today?

Not sure it fits
on a postcard
i'm
not sure sentiment
is worth one fucking stamp,
when a younger man i
was no more happy though
once
i watched the pink broad
sky,
alone in a far-off sand
and surrounded
by the shadows of coyotes, one
gets weak with linebreak, one doesn't
have the heart
to end it, as if believing perhaps
one line might finally solve it, as if
there might ever be
one final line.