i.

jesus christ walks into a bar
orders a bloody mary
says to the bartender
what do i owe you?
the bartender says
not much

there once was an indian
everyone called chief
stop me when this sounds
his real name was bob
white
anyway
drunk he chanted something
meant to travel past the moon
which is an awful thing
to attempt to do

the only good men i know are fools

the maple and the oak and the cut ash
in the darkness beyond this
indescribable contemplation
in the the midst of winter
upon winter
care
i suppose
drunk myself and one quarter
something or other native
just enough to allow themselves
displacement
within the mind of myself
which may as well be
moon.


ii.

the divine may as well be
but i disagree
klaxons and kazoos
porch-lights and windowpanes
it is all indelicate indelibility

and then there are the goddesses
spread-eagle in supplication
of themselves
this ruins me
in the same insane way
as the loss of thought
for the apple
of the apple tree

there is so little to say
that you must know
and so much to say
without being said

here's the joke i keep hearing
once
my whole life

all of sensation is a type
of laughter
not kind
not set.


iii.

so i really did know an indian
and his name really was bob
he empties the swill
from leftover drinks in his yard
and gets money from the government
for a type of arthritis
that makes you blind

the point of all this
is that it is pointless

bob wears a leather vest
and at sixty-five and six two
still gets laid
by love herself
piecemeal
whenever he sobers up

which really is a joke

tho i am the world's
not greatest
but most worthy of liars

i really do only
moonlit truth.


iv.

and this last cigarette
which i could not roll myself
will mark and mirror and profanely
commiserate these whorls
of worlds whored into words
i just have to think about it
to light it

here's a game by kitchen fluorescent murk
where have i been?
here
where am i now?
here
where will i go and what will i do?
hear and heir the shadows
of things partially defined
by myself
which is coincidentally
cigarette lit here
how i define myself
cigarette re-lit here

i forget what i've said
as i say it
i keep wanting to incorporate
the moon

and i do--
on this last inhale
i do.