(final draft)
time bomb tattoo
ask the man with the time bomb tattoo if lightning knocks on
his door
at four a.m., to the sad sighs of neighbors landlords
girlfriends,
even the crickets get scared, refuse to score soundtracks as
lightning strikes
and strikes and strikes
ask him if buttercups really taste like butter,
ask him how many licks it takes to get to the center of a
burn-out
(as many as it takes, his obsessions
are legendary)
ask him for chemical rainbows, treasures to decorate a
desert, and skies
absurdly blue,
or madness a shade darker than a bruise, a beautiful black
we can inject,
trick death, be ghosts and rage
ask his name,
his real name, not the metaphors he wears like a
straightjacket,
the lizard wizard of euphoria, crashdanger the cross-eyed,
man with a time bomb tattoo, ask but he won’t tell
ask him the big mysteries, let him tell you riddles,
zen and the art of why did the chicken cross the road,
secret short-cuts to jupiter
(on jupiter, jesus doesn’t have to
be anybody’s sacrificial lamb,
just a man, a union carpenter,
shooting sideways smiles at his beautiful
wife, chasing his children across
wide beaches,
watching them splash and play in
the water, growing strong in sun…
would you deny him one uncrucified
daydream?)
ask about the weather, the storm clouds behind his eyes, the
rain that pours
in his bedroom, the white snowflake pills in his medicine
cabinet
ask him for proof of spontaneous combustion, real
measurements,
legal definitions, blood tests and brain scans, (as you can
see in this x-ray
the bipolar
started in his left foot (perhaps a spider bite)
then wormed its
way into the brain cave
and abracadabra,
the king of
clusterfuck!)
ask him how many psychiatrists he eats for breakfast
ask if he hears voices (he doesn’t, but he’ll make shit up
just to entertain
you)
ah
the explosions that burst from his mouth, that hotwired time
bomb man,
his mind is shit, his mind is formaldehyde and onion rings,
his mind is heavy
metal
ask him how far the spirit falls, climbs, falls, the trip is
instantaneous
in a brain with no speed limits, trip and slip over the
moon, trip
and rip the skin open, trip and split the atom, and then
sleepsleepsleepsleep
sleep
ask him if crazy is really as lonely as death
he’ll draw a blank
and put it in a
picture frame
(jupiter is too far away to
hitchhike,
also, buses don’t go there,
so he paints jupiter striped clouds
on his sunglasses
and prays,
for jesus, jupiter, daydreams)
ask for demolition specifications and safety procedures
hey is that tattoo real?
has the countdown started yet?
does it itch?
how far away should i stand?
when he grips his head and starts to weep, the show begins,
and like a caterpillar injected with nitro glycerin he blows
himself to
caterpillar oblivion, disembodied thoughts and toxic shame,
no beautiful
blooming wings to speak of,
so
unbutterfly
but this is not a
metamorphosis
not a rebirth or an awakening, it’s not catastrophe or
tragedy,
not the forever-end he begs for, the man with the time bomb
tattoo
picks up his pieces and crawls
away,
today is done,
the show is over
go home
***artwork “jalopy sings your favorite dance tunes
(self-portrait)”
