Was Losing My Joie De Vivre Really Like
       

regular melancholy got mad one day
& went downtown to mesh with whores
with tiny perks in their pockets

such as the aiready-sucked-upon wet ends
of cigs? Was it really that flat-out
low down & dumb? Or was it more like

it was too June for October
like there were tugboats on the lake
& diving boards ten feet from the shore

with kids jumping off them
with their joy still intact
only these kids weren't kids

so much as mannequins
stuffed with something buzzing in a way
like tomatoes & ferns? Was it really

winter at the time then spring
then summer then fall then winter again
around & around like a cakewalk

in the gym? Was this really the reality?
Was it the cliché? Were the bakers really
jailbirds dragging their most lusty confections

to imbeciles waiting deaf in running trucks?
Yes I think it was like all the gospel
had been drained out of Kentucky.

Like all the Kentucky had been drained
from Kentucky. Like all that
slow-moving fundamentalist sway

had been hacked to bits by a Viking.
& yes I was an infant in the nursery
of a new kingdom of blah. & yes

when I say blah I mean blah
which plus or minus this or that
also means death.

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Copyright © 2018 Adrian Blevins All rights reserved
from Appalachians Run Amok
Two Sylvias Press
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission