In Desperation

for Joe Jeremy

Open a book your mind. Read not a nice world. Words laugh you in the face and walk away exited, leave you starving to count what you hate as whatever you need. Your love has always hated you. It turns your friends against you. You bribe your money for more time, a tax on bitterness and passion. Your freedom takes your car and totals it on the freeway. Your house forgets your name. Your food cuts its wrists and dies in its blood on your bed. Your comfort lies to you, and expects you not to care. Chew on your chewed thumb. Know what you can’t get. Every mirror is the same.

September 1972