Near Zero Blog

Downer Grimsley
He spitting teeth
rotten leather to the bone
I believe in the scripture, he says
and the power of belief
I got my hol-ey rag to fizzle
There are other things to do
than getting stoned

He folds me and props me up
scans my teeth for eyes
I am bitter and plain,
stinky and deranged
Five days of late-night split shifts
I’m a fart fizzling in the rain, wheezing

His “conversation” is fingers to the brain
feeling for levers to push
stamped and tooled, I am collected
into holy war and dissected
There’s a reason for this and that, he says

He sees me white and naked
looking the same as always
like many who came before
who didn’t Judge themselves bad,
didn’t view things in simple this or that
Someone who dared peace for himself
with his own self-mastery
Not a judgmental self, writ large
judging others
judging them as they judge themselves
in poetically prejudicial reverie

This coulda been
This shoulda would
If only you could see
that you are no good
Nothing you do, he says
comes from yourself
If it makes you think
of somebody else
Twenty-three, I said
I don’t know you
But I don’t like you
I am going to talk
WITH my fellow man instead