in January
Sweat drips down my forehead
hanging gently like a princess
in some fairy tale story
climbing down from a tower
yet afraid to drop-
pulled out of the pocked-up
parking lot-
cursing my putrid luck-
can’t make the sell-
can’t spend the cash-
can’t seem content with
the tent under which I’ve crawled
on this Canterbury-esque trip to camp
in an unconquerable crevasse so cramped-
a canyon for my crying mind.
Bought Diamond Shamrock at
a dollar-one and it
failed to quench
even the slightest inch
of my car’s ravenous yearnings-
fifteen dollars down to
once more be empty-
depleting my meager earnings.
Tank vacated and wasted
in a vast expanse in
a state where nobody strives to advance-
like Utah maybe or Idaho-
who the hell goes there anyhow?
God knows!
Vapid excuses for vacation rendezvous!
My spent vehicle’s prostrations vehement-
please pardon me again as I vent-
it’s eighty-five degrees in fucking January!
What is it with the weather in this place?
Who the hell loosed the devil so early?
That loser- that Lucifer-
and clued him into my location?
Could swallow forty pills a night-
twice that at morning’s light-
and still there’s no tow in sight
to airlift my listless body-
cackling like a lush as
I’m taken aloft-
eyes alight for a destination-
or a sacred duty.
I’m searching for something
around which to bend my soul-
sequential to a vehicle contrived
to eschew this void’s control-
liberated from probation
in this polyester tent
any longer than I have to be pent
and it’s eighty-fucking-five degrees
in January!
