Unqualia for Life
St. Elmo's Glowstick
20% Is Standard
Thus Spake Pumpkin Spice Nietzche
Your brain is unhappy with how you've been
behaving lately. The Walmart incident.
That time at Hardee’s with the weed whacker.
All the fires you’re sticking your hand in.
Your brain is concerned you're forgetting
the shape of the cage, the shadows playing
across the disappointed faces of everyone.
It’s time to get off the monkey bars and give
someone else a chance to break an arm.
The streets are thick with potholes, and you
keep closing your eyes every time someone throws
you a football. Despite what your tee-shirt says,
you don't make women feel like a natural
woman. You make them feel like you’re staring
into some family’s bay window while they’re playing
Cranium. Your brain shakes its head. It’s writing
you a letter. The letter explains everything.
But you’ll never read it. When the lights go out,
You’ll be in a room so large there’ll be nothing
for you to bump into.
You taught me the world is a furnace.
It's how we stay warm and it's why
we turn to ash. It was part of a lesson
plan that included not being able
to get inside each other, only share
the smell of burning hair forever. Our wooden
hearts crinkling in the night sound pleasant,
like we're lounging on a beach, our blood
boiling like perfect waves. But let's
be honest, I'm salted as driftwood, bleached
pale and hollow, a femur of scrap lumber.
Just because we bake under the sky's toaster
oven doesn't mean we'll ever come out done.
You sneeze rain clouds and wonder
why every time you turn around,
a farmer sprays pollen in your face.
Isn’t it obvious that you and all the things
you sort of enjoyed are going to die?
Wait till you see the bill, and the gratuity.
The largest woman in the room
might engulf you in her belly
if you weren't coated in hot sauce.
But are you worthy of being swallowed?
What’s ahead is written in hives
because what itches is the future.
I'm not trying to make you sad; the mirror
doesn't need that much help. There were days
when love wore boots, grabbed your hair
and pulled you in for a rough, hard kiss.
You were so busy bitching about windburn
you forgot to realize this was joy.
Thus Spake Pumpkin Spice Nietzche
Pumpkin Spice Nietzsche is the delicious
snack cookie that has no windows. He's tired
of sipping, tired of this Starbucks life,
but he embraces the foam. Otherwise,
life would be a mistake, instead of a series
of macchiatos. Everyone in line for caffeine
is afraid he won't make up his mind
because he's actually reading the menu.
His shirt proclaims: pumpkin spice is dead.
He is arguing with the man who believes
that the line does not exist, that the line
as it ought to be does not exist. Then why
are we thirsty? he asks. The barista answers:
What doesn’t make you thirsty, steals from the tip jar.
CL Bledsoe is the author of a dozen books, most recently the poetry collection Riceland and the novel Man of Clay.
Michael Gushue runs the nano-press Beothuk Books and is co-founder of Poetry Mutual/Vrzhu Press. His work appears online and in print, most recently in Beltway Poetry Quarterly, the Michigan Quarterly, and Gargoyle. His chapbooks are Gathering Down Women, Conrad, and Pachinko Mouth (from Plan B Press).
