a herd of gazelle
drink from a lake
within striking distance.
they pay me no attention. why should they.
in thirty years
i haven't chased a single one of them.
my claws are smooth and rounded
from digging grubs out of the earth.
presently, noam chomsky
is giving a lecture on totalitarianism
in my ipod.
i turn the volume up
and close my eyes. later
my friend
carl the water buffalo
brings me a cheese sandwich
snagged from a british safari group.
we discus chomsky.
i tell carl
chomsky points out existing hypocrisy and propaganda
with the accuracy of a sniper
but his own political philosophies
are empty turtle shells.
incurable cancer of the intellectual,
carl says
as a clutch of bonobos
start throwing shit balls at me
from the branches
of a mango tree.
i show them my teeth, but
they just laugh
and redouble their efforts.
i bottomed out
two shots of tequila
and asked
the old man
in red suspenders
to my left
how the variables were.
what's that?
he asked
voice of bullfrog
slowly bringing a
can of schlitz
to his
thin grey lips.
i wanna hear about
all the
freeze dried penguins
between your toes,
i said
popping my knuckles
feeling pretty damn good
almost human
for the first time
in a month.
he took a
dark blue handkerchief
out of his back pocket,
cleared the chambers
chipped off the inside edges
with his thumb
pocketed it
picked up the schlitz
and made his way
to the
video poker game.
what'd you say
to clarke? brian
the bartender asked.
i haven't been out
in a while,
sometimes i forget
a perfect circle
only exists
in the mind,
i said
telling him
give me two more
and split those dandelions
down the middle
with a
jack-d.
to persiflage clarke!
i yelled across the bar
funneled all three
to the kill-switch
popped my knuckles
and put a little joplin on the box
feeling pretty damn good
almost human
for the first time
in a month.
Justin Hyde lives in Iowa where he works with criminals. He has a Web page at http://www.nyqpoets.net/poet/justinhyde. He can be contacted here: jjjjhyde@yahoo.com jjjjhyde@yahoo.com.