TO THE BARN TO GET SOMETHING

Yesterday I strolled out 
To the barn to get something, the drill  
Or maybe that pink putty, it turns white   
When it dries, & the window was black, buzzed.  
  
Overnight, two hundred  
Or more flies birthed in the barn  
& then the swarm swarmed the window.  
  
Thoughts, these flies, headaches, pandemics--they sweep   
The psyche, the window, this noggin, this nation.  
  
I woke to a nuisance I didn't earn.  
When I flushed the toilet, the sewage rose.    
  
This is what I've become, squatting, shitting  
On paper towel in the garage. 
 
Suddenly it begins to snow.  
  
I don’t know how to say it, but   
The cashier at the grocery has begun 
To harass me, comments on  
The length of my cucumbers, the girth  
Of the chicken breast I buy  
For homemade dog food.  
  
Today she called me a skank, in question  
Form & even worse, the shelves were still  
Bare of toilet paper, matches.  
  
Still I can’t blame her, remembering what   
I said here earlier   
About thoughts flying, the headache  
Of a pandemic, unknown   
Accident or incident prior. 
I zip up my coat & move on. 
 
Once outside of an alehouse  
In Muncie, Indiana, someone mentioned  
Last night’s Sugarland concert.  
  
I said, “I heard they really brought the house down,”  
A stupid joke, my goof-timed cheeking  
At the tragic collapse of the stage.  
  
A guy said, “My cousin died in that collapse.”  
“O fuck,” I said, “Punch me.  
Free of charge,” but he refused.  
  
Surely, countless other accidents  
& incidents I have forgotten, folks  
I have disrespected.   
 
I have lived a long time, made many moronic maneuvers.  
  
Thomas Edison originally believed   
The phonograph a tool   
For recording voices, memos to mother, meanderings best  
Kept secret, though necessary to let   
Fly from the snout.  
Not songs, no, he argued. 
 
Songs are already recorded elsewhere, have to be found. 
 
Here’s how dumb & pathetic I am!  
I still take one of my wife's hairpins  
 
To clean my earwax, though I know  
Lee Gerstenzang invented the q-tip in 1923. ​