discarded identity

Now.
(______), you primal sad sack, bald,
still married to the adequate but barren girl,
(barren by choice I am told)
inhabited by what fear she may have known
early on your life a dream of golems and
girls both elvis and lied von der erde
the subtle march of our own deceptions
hacking away in the forest of subconscious
memory who you once were and who
I still am and who twice-born though he
may be is the great wellesian actor who
has claimed your hours as blood across
the decades. Chump you are and, truth now,
did you fuck the witch? and does
your woman know? How many hidden
things are in this picture? Where's Gary?
For one. Where's the monument to the
house burned down on second street
perhaps for fun He played that banjo
badly in that time now he feels the
keyboard swallowing up the remainder
of days, thinking hard about not thinking
about those disappearing leaves of
his previous life. All over, all done now.
Placed in the wooden box, the river
water seeping in, the scratchy pages
not quite right the one on top the Great
American Highway Speech oh the cassette
of that on the back porch on Washington
Street in the spring of 1979 I can still
hear your drunken syllables calling out
for patriotism and fun for the glory of
an American scientist and engineer
as seen from space well you would
know about that wouldn't you? Once
the leader, the maker of decisions. Now
the shill for those who run the business
of education and in this slightly comical
state in this latest absurdist version
of the good old usa. How are you
going to find your way back? I know.
You're not.