you know that noise that/that/that fills your

head at the end of the day

as you slam down your burdens

down by the riverside of forgetfulness

not even in sleep is your life suspended

‘Au Natural’

‘cause you still can’t rest

not even on your

Buy-One-Get-One-Free!(Yeah-RIGHT) polyethylene pillow

of drug induced slumber because

you woke up and smell’d the truth

tickling your nostrils with noiZe

And the Word of The noiZe says t’ain’t no use even when you do the best you can. . .so you

put your Mr. Coffee on call to perk a jerk and

CLEAR/shock/CLEAR/shock  CLEAR/shock your flatlin’d brain

of all the screwy expectations that people

EXPECTORATED  you to grip from the past,  to super-glue your intentions to

(in this present Craze of Age)

and to pretend to leave behind as they go
Good Will Hunting after your remains rot away. . . 

and what is left of your belongings gets fought over by your dead calm relatives who only showed up to make certain that

you were really ‘dead’ so they can scrap over your  blue and yellow plastic bag of forsaken earthly treasures in the Anno Domini

sweet by-and-bye-bye;

then you try to comfort yourself by scratching your own butt ONLY to have your husband your wife, your mistress your gigolo

your trans-whatever-however-whenever to flatulate on your recently softly lathered, hardly-water-rinsed skin

—oh y’all know that sound. . .

that sound that is closer to you

than your own heartbeat

—the one that makes you wanna

get up and holla’  ‘O’ at Four PM

the one that fornicates your inner ear screaming

“HEY, Go hide up under your mattress”

while at the very same time will eat the lies

of your loaned-out education in default

and  says you can do anything and that

you’re a fool to try,

 so you better duck and run and pray to Elvis

at the same bat time same bat channel—

just wake up and have to empty your bladder
because you can’t sleep with all this noiZe

 and you think to yourself in the dark

while dabbing your private parts with

dollar store bath tissue,

all you ever really wanted

in your father-truckin’ life was simply. . .

a little hard pony named "My"—

a little pink oven to bake your suzie—

a couple of friends to snap back your slinky—

and a sweet quickie with bowl of Cap’n Crunch and a prayer that matter’d to somebody else—

but it’s too tepid in the room to dip your toes in Sleep’s river, too humid to relax—too loud in your life to find ethereal ivory quiescence

. . . and you wake up in the morning,

in the still of the night trying to forget

All of The Noize.

© 2005 cynth’ya lewis reed

All rights reserved