On Grenades of Our Own Design

One: Them

There is no doubt when someone gets it right
in science like Brautigan or poetry like Koestler;

(and you see what I did there:
I swapped them in the manner
of the stand up comic, for effect,
because I've read the esoterica
that says this is how the brain works,
and I believe it).

These molders of outrage claymation knead
little knobs of words into a fast blurring smear,
solving the algebra of panic and repose
and dying by choice before us.

Two: Us

Even for a bedroom community
there were way too many bedrooms.
We had the crappy broom, we had the good broom,
we had a vacuum and a carpet sweeper
but we couldn't keep up with the hair

slowly woven around the edge of the apartment.

The cat was crying,
so we had to do something.
We moved the cat to a cardboard box,
then we moved the cat and the box closer to the door.
And the alarm clock freaked out anyway,
twice, for each of our mornings.

The cat was dying, and we flew apart like lucky birds.

Years later, one red and white rambling ranch
looks like another in St James' streets
and I couldn't get to that place
if you clipped me, caged and carried me.

Three: Me

I am racing to the traffic light
because I'm a list maker,
and that is what's next.
I might turn right at the red light,
it's my right to turn right at the red light.

I am fleeing chimp-like into meetings,
in tight shoes and itchy wool pants,
carrying rule books and building
a pinched consensus among the wood-like
tables and cooperative folding chairs.

I am in a twisted firing squad.
Some of our heads shoot blanks,
blameless as a new phone.
We're a rain of exploded social beasts
falling back on grenades of our own design.