romancing chemistry

you're brilliant but stupidly
outthink your next move
move over move on
before the thing's complete

i;m glad you're treating me like we're
already married so i won't have
to go through the bother


you bow to the gods of bad timing
  wring the chicken's neck
and still   can't get a same day appointment
with the dmv. traffic moves with
meconium's urgency, the dean will decide
if those marks on your record are permanent
or if they'll let you back in the lab again
and typically, the cops are no help.

nothing you can do but go sit over ln the median
with your cell phone  and some forms and fill them out.
the air conditioning stopped working when capillary twenty burst
but not to sweat it, there's a tree. august ain't so bad
if you like your saunas stifling. you have an hour
to get the names and dates right. go!















*




there are things  you can do for which
the world will forgive you
and you've added them all to your cart
the last three times you were in here.
left behind is your greatest fear.
actually that's not fair. remembrance,
that's the trauma you're never post enough for.

you gotta find your mojo, man, i know
you put it in here somewhere.
move that shit on the bed or you'll be delivering flowers
the rest of your life. kiss the nanoparticles goodbye.

listen, she saved your life three years ago, unbeknownst till now.
that should more than make up for the time she had you arrested
after she got her kid free weekend. if you'd saved some
of that patent money for lawyering up, this issue, this one
small little apres le nasty divorce issue would take care
of ten years' forced gulag by monday and the world
would right itself. that's when the cancer pops up.
it just happens that way. we don't know why
it's in the script. just follow the script.
you were in love. they  broke your heart
and buried you under a twelve million dollar grant
that did not even belong to you.
that's why cancer. duh.

























_____0000------











i have my own theories on chemical bonds
 they're written in  analogy
not in  a language
you'd understand. but that woman
who was dead by the time watson and crick
got their nobel is a good example of pure science
performed in   quotidian towers
and it's amazing what can be accomplished
when no one has to have the credit, a socialist cliche
 boomeranging back to anono because no one's
  that saintly, not even god  don't
believe me, read the first five commandments
in the Holy Bible and deduce the model.
song as old as time, beauty and the beast, yes disney too
 the company that spoonfed sugar
to an entire generation, has a credited
  in old dead cryogenic walt waiting
for resurrection like wile e or elmer or  wait a minute
those
 are the competition, fuck! if i can't maintain
one of the most hallowed modern saint's symbols
how can i ever explain the way gasses
move up, away, bupkiss over teakettle, zip
 round electronesque frilling spaces and holes
 trying to fill the whole emptiness of  vacuum
with speed, baby,  pure speed so fast
they sound vast a  laps at daytona 500
so fast they form strings of light
 at the end of lili's sparkler
fourth of july.








*(((



i may have wandered off subject there.

it's nice to have triangulation on a while page.
like a slope , or a gentle curve maybe to find
out where a life has been. trace the road
you and i drove during the night
sick kids in the backseat, going far away
from the midwest we grew up in, far away
from what was left of my family. you, asleep;
the children quiet; outside our covered wagon
the  forest was  covered in white. the moon
was full and we were so high up in the pass
i felt   i could swim to it were i bumblebee.
the trees shimmered, animal eyes blinked
around us. i drove slowly. i think that's what
woke you. when you found we   passed
the last town without stopping you began
to panic,went into attack, the jetscream
of your voice, the blame in your tone.
i machined gunned you with silencers on
the children stayed blessedly asleep in fever dream.
we fought in the bright glare of pupiless eyes
with the car running out precious fuel
that may have gotten us over the mountain
 you on time to a new job
me to the same place i was before,
missing something you should have given me
instead of children or flowers. i almost
left you then. well. i did. but you
being catalysed and self absorbed
did not even notice. besides,
where should i even go?













**((((


for this is your story through the female gaze
the one you wish adoration adorned. and it did,
for a while. i left my husband for you. twice.
oh sure the marriage was over, you and i were
exciting, the future looked bright. but you wouldn't
leave her. you wanted to save your dysfunctional family
when only god can undo what you two did.
you loved me as the woman d'affaire, the poet, the one
who should have borne your children. i imagine
you don't remember the place you declared
your love for me, or the walk by the lake
details reserved for old age, when passion
must be pulled into bed and given a good massage
with the oils of yesterday's faces.i do my best to forget
you as well. i still speak to your daughter.
i know you aren't dead. we once said we would always.
now you won't answer the phone.



the second time i left him
you were so new, so tall. who can say
what makes a marriage crumble
after so many years, what drives me
to sell off the place my babies grew up in
my husband was not there much
still he bought out my half and half a year
later you moved in the brand new house. man,
you treated me so well,
you treated me like a princess, i reacted
like a starving dog. i ate it all, till my belly burst.
a starving dog with a master card. we bought
it all,it would be the thing that bound us
a new business, so we shopped
 the  till the seams of the new house burst
with unsold merchandise. you were still reeling
from the shock of rhiananon, the loss of your house
the insanity of your kid. you were not a salesman
your bookkeeping skills are questionable
and when the credit runs out, all the color
and the fine glazes we fired upon each other
melted in the long slow burn of goodbye.
when you finally left. i wanted you back.
i threatened to kill myself. you wouldn't talk to me on the phone.
now i'm as indifferent to your fate as you to mine.
when you call again, i'll try to remember why.




****




still i pick you up again
wait for you to dust yourself off, i
didn 't want a housewife, you
didn't want to be one,so we settle
for giiggolo and debtor. your honesty
has me keeping my pennies for myself
but i'll pay for your company at dinner
just like the rich girls do. after all
when you get money you could do the same/
for me is what i hope. what i fear is sanity
will take hold of you again, have  you  dating pammies
wearing lipstick and pantyhose over birkenstocked
hippie girls spouting poetry on the noon break.
still i'll see you wednesday' and fridays for a while, right?
till you get on your feet and all the money you earned
pushes you into your next life
with a new wife
or otherwise suitable to your station honey
you'll have the money, earned all by yourself.