Riding Mr. Fanelli
    for Charles Bernstein

Look at this photo.
It's in a station
on a street. 1979. You could say
that it's interesting in
the way that
Pudge Rodriguez standing over
a stack of pancakes is
interesting. Mr. Fanelli,
there's a mountain and
a comb and they're walking
down a street. 1979. And what happens
is so disagreeable that despite
the tiny cries
of a million tiny people
one still cannot see the hand
cream or the kielbasa
that moves parallel to
what is permitted and
adjacent to what is intended and
loping along to what
feels like a cry for help,
untransmitted. Mr.
Fanelli - there's a
gentle mountain lying dormant
in the station, in the street. It's 1979.
And my point is trite,
but think about it. I don't have
a sandwich and I don't know
where it is. Mr.
Fanelli, do you think that
you could take your finger from the trigger
and we'd both feel more comfortable because
as they say, subtlety is the
rudest form of vanity, especially
today with all these express trains
passing rudely by the streets
every fucking minute, when the
trains actually do run on time?
Come on! Admit it, Mr. Fanelli, admit that
you think about a station, about a street,
that you think it's 1979 and that
instead of basting your steak
one of these times you should knock it out!
Meanwhile the day vultures swoop in
thinking that the world
is a little too high of a cost
for the way me and you have been, and me,
I aksed first: What in the
ape shit have you done
with our puny heads? If
our puny heads were algae-laden, they'd
still be our puny, damp heads. Mr.
Fanelli, don't you understand that if
we want our heads to be puny
then that's the only thing we want to be puny,
not stations and not
1979, not streets and their puny-headed
look with their puny
intentions that should be quizzed.
I aks you, spare me sir,
Is there a zendo near here? Mr.
Fanelli, when and if you see
the photo and the letter
put them into your sugar bowl
and think about it.
What you're really aksing
is if I'm fond of your leg
with its low cost estimates,
its never-ending quizzes that I'm obligated
to write on: quizzes
you would never write on
in any station, on any street, 1979
because and this is very

    (work in progress)