I GET IT, ERNEST BECKER. I TOTALLY GET IT…

          ~ You not feeling me? Fine. It cost you nothing.
                                                                                  Pay me no mind. —Jay-Z, “Heart of the City”

When the moment feels like forever… Forget beauty. Forget the moon.
Forget the mafia. Forget daisies. Forget sciatica. Forget the Indy 500. Forget green pennies.
Forget gas prices. Forget God. Forget blue dish soap. Don’t go back to the store.
             Don’t rush August. June and July never last long enough…
Pick the Black-Eyed Susan’s in your neighbor’s garden. Be careful under the walnut tree.
But don’t forget to walk. Don’t forget the dusk. Look out for love.
Write graffiti on the wind, the clouds, the governments desk.
People are always fixing things they don’t even understand.
Spare the night light. Screw the past. Fuck acid reflux.
Forget the co-pay. Forget the vet bills. Forget flipped houses
And painted bricks. Forget the cloudy window
You stare through and expect answers
To reach out and grab you.
I stayed up last night
Reading
Fat City by Leonard Gardner.
Even as I turned the pages, I already planned to read it again.
Even as I turned the pages, I prayed it would keep keeping me alive.
             But who the fuck is this anthropologist?
Stop trying to control people. Watch the coyote. Forget the leash.
             When did you go blind to tripwire, blind to ruin?
I’d rather die than live inside that house.

 
Bryce Berkowitz

BRYCE BERKOWITZ is the recipient of the AMC TV Pilot Award at the Austin Film Festival and the author of Bermuda Ferris Wheel, winner of the 42 Miles Press | Indiana U. Poetry Award. He teaches at Butler University. You can find him at: www.bryceberkowitz.com

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