angry face poem, confused person

i feel angry tonight

you can’t see it on my face

because my back is turned

is there a mug? someone said

can you make tea? someone said

what? i said

can you boil water? someone said

my face is contorted in a way that my shoulders are not

they are aligned and relaxed

they show poise

i feel angry and i feel good about it

i don’t know why or what that means

i know that later i will go to bed

i know that ordinary things will happen tomorrow

i know that i will never achieve complete awareness

the kind that comes from a life spent learning everything and then unlearning everything and then existing effortlessly in some kind of naturally realized state of peacefulness that is entirely non-catatonic

i am trying to tell everyone something

and i’m not sure what it is

and i am constantly scanning elevated areas

for snipers

and i don’t know what to do with my time

and i don’t know what i want

and i have an angry face




this is how everything will be from now on

i am on the continent of antarctica
i am sticking my head inside an ice shelf
i see a whole world of secret creatures
living happily
i go home
i sit down
i try to write a poem about riding the bus
it starts, i am riding a bus
it is not a good poem
i look out the window
there is a man outside
hanging a newspaper
in a tree
eye level
from a seat on the bench
he’s successfully freed his hands
they are overlapped
across his chest
he feels victorious in a small way
i can see it on his face
i go away from the window
and feel that i was being watched
in an irrational way
i think about kicking the man hard
somewhere that will hurt him
i think about mercantilism
in the seventeenth century
i go away from the window
for the second time in two minutes
i think about large scale nuclear annihilation
i think about a squirrel
stealing the newspaper
for its nest
which i learned to distinguish
from a bird’s
by its messiness
i look for snipers
while standing a relatively safe distance
from the window
and feel calmly that controlled paranoia
is keeping my mind sharp
and occupied
i am spending my time
i am being alive
i am not a confused person