poem for jack

Yes, it is cold in Wisconsin most of the time, Jack

but when the sun comes, & the pansies poke their tiny painted faces through the ice

it is marvelous

*

Oh, Jack, darling, sometimes I yawn and say commonplace things,

but sometimes I burn with madness

Don’t you see Jack,

how poets have the power to turn fleeting things into forever?

*

I always thought you were the most handsome while smoking a cigarette

Tell me Jack,

do you like girls with magenta hair

who sometimes yawn

& sometimes burn?

Without punctuation

The pig said to me

“Are you really going to wear that stupid human suit again?”

I tell him, he should be jumping off cliffs

& if I wasn’t trapped beneath the bell jar

I’d be melting down my failures

& worshipping them like a golden calf

I used to be a girl who could sleep

now I only dream when I’m awake

& in the dead of night, the devil climbs through my window

looking for someone to go down with

He tells me death can take me fast

or death can take me slow

& I wonder if I could poem from a coffin

or if anyone will care

How did I get on the wrong side of this war

I always swore I’d eat these puppeteers like nostalgia

& then I could write like Kerouac

high on Benzedrine

& without punctuation