Songs to Learn & Sing

He was wandering amid obscene
hexameters. He was wondering about blame
& maybe some miniature

golf. His t-shirt said, FBI: Female Body Inspector
& later there were incidents &
accidents, a ritual enactment of possession

or maybe rabies. First the bulb
had dropped from its socket & now
his coffee was getting mocked.

His t-shirt said, Not Dead Yet & so
Switzerland became metaphor for sabotage
or subterfuge, maybe just some shit swept

under rug. He tried using the word squash
as a noun, watched the cloud cover moving
& was, therefore, moved. Perhaps the colony

had not actually collapsed in all that
disorder, he reasoned. Meanwhile his fingers
itched to chop at logic like a tiny white pill.

Copyright © 2008 Chris McCreary All rights reserved
from Columbia Poetry Review
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission