as a sexual pervert
hands his dick
to your six year old daughter.
as a newborn
is wrapped in a towel
and thrown in the trash.
as a fourteen year old runaway
spreads her legs
for a porno flick.
as the sun burns the flesh
of another failed epoch
the days
pierce our skulls
like suicidal javelins.
absolutely nothing
we can do.
//i flunked english my junior year of high-school//
is there something wrong?
mrs kroger asked.
tell me,
maybe i can
help.
there was something
wrong.
the hands
the feet
the faces
the voices.
the relentless agony
of the wheel.
but i could not
tell her that.
back then
i still figured
i was insane,
thought if i started chirping
they'd ship me off
to the county farm.
but i knew
the world
wanted to make me
an onion press
or some sort of
industrial
band-saw.
i resented that.
and book reports on
old man and the sea
and moby dick
were just more dead flies
in the oil slick.
but the worst part
of it all
was knowing
there was no escape,
it seemed
we were all fucked,
right from the village idiot
straight up to the millionaire
pedophile.
i discovered alcohol
and the inside of a vagina
a few ticks
down the road.
but that only
made things better
and ten times
worse.
//6pm med-line at the work release facility//
mr. jarvis takes liver pills,
heart pills,
gout pills, schizophrenia pills
and insulin shots.
he's a sixty-two year old
burned out
needle freak
barely making it
through each workday
at the tennis-shoe recycling plant.
he's shown me pictures in his room
he was a green beret
in vietnam,
the 72 gto
he flipped in the ditch
killing his first wife.
i check under his tongue
after each pill,
initial beside his initial in the med-log.
i have this idea justin,
i could take an ad out in the paper
people could call me up
when they get lonely
or just feeling low,
i could meet them for coffee.
i'd call it phone-a-friend,
you think
i could do some good
that way?
Justin Hyde lives in Iowa where he works with criminals. He has a web-page here: http://www.nyqpoets.net/poet/justinhyde.
