Fink

Wallpaper peeling,

white paste on the fingertips

like a glazed doughnut.

 

Lost in writer’s block,

unable to press out a

simple wrestling film,

bother’d by ev’ry little

thing like an ear infection.

 

But the neighbor man

has the syndrome, the agent

is a clogged sink drain.

 

The aging sage drowns

himself in stupidity,

and the sink drain seeks

his wisdom, yet even the

daily shorts are of no use.

 

The idiot child

freaks out about the phony,

and smooches the muse.

 

Pan across the room,

and down the bathroom sink drain,

the muse lays sodden

in pints of hemoglobin,

a corpse, no longer living.

 

The big shot and the

broad strokes, a bullshit session

where the writer wins.

 

And the old guard is

committed to the dustbin,

as the insurance

man takes off leaving the sink

sinking in his own despair.

 

The brown package on

the bedside table, the man

leaves it there for now.

 

He reads the book of

Daniel, the part about the

dunghill and the cops

coming to question him on

the beastly being next door.

 

Dropping the card on

purpose because he is a

yellow star human,

all the service men hate him

and they rage with fists flying.

 

Writing with fury,

as the mad insurance man

empties two barrels.

 

The conflagration

ensues, and he leaves with a

s****y script and a

box that may or may not have

a human head inside it.

 

Walking the beach, the

girl from the hotel room wall

appears before him.

 

And the high tide wave

crashes against the ancient

boulder, foreshadowing the

conclusion to the strange piece.

 

Be it with buckshot

between the eyes or chopping

off somebody’s head.

 

Now under contract

forever, the sink drain is

the dripping faucet.

 

Writing s**t pictures

for his measly daily bread,

sold out and shot down,

no longer a common man,

just a shill for the machine.