[Tony Barnstone]

He Who Holds Fast to the Way Desires Not to Be Full

The urinal at Kwik Way restaurant:
My body drains a yellow sunlit summer
balled up in orange antioxidant
fruit, which is chewed up by the consumer,
me, then drops through the esophageal
passage to the stomach where the acid
disassembles it like rind from peel,
dispersing it through bloodstream to this flaccid
flesh pipe that pours its pungent uric flow
from me to not-me in an acrid stream.
I’m in a sleepy haze, happy to release
what I have taken in, like a gas hose,
and shudder, shaking off the world’s live stream.
Graffiti reads, Don't mind your brain! and Peace
Out, motherfucker! and I do, believe
me, for some thirty seconds. Then I leave.


Laozi, The Dao De Jing (400 BCE)

...or maybe, "Remind your mind" would be better?


He Who Holds Fast to the Way Desires not to Be Full

At Berkel Berkel’s sushi restaurant
my body drains a yellow sunlit summer
balled up in orange antioxidant
fruit, which is chewed up by the consumer,
me, then drops through the esophageal
passage to the stomach where the acid
disassembles it like rind from peel,
dispersing it through bloodstream to this flaccid
flesh pipe that pours its pungent distillation
like battery acid in an acrid stream.
I’m in a sleepy haze, happy to release
what I have taken in (like a gas station)
and shudder, shaking off the world’s live stream.
Graffiti reads, Tattoo your brain! and Peace
Out, motherfucker! and I do, believe
me, for some thirty seconds. Then I leave.


Laozi, The Dao De Jing (400 BCE)