after Michael Farrell

as if a poem were a person, me, i get up in the morning
i buy coffee in a can, and wait

you have to keep calm, “don’t get upset”
or it fucks everything up. the bosses who tell me this

are wise but stupid troopers. this is a political poem
this is a work poem. poetry is my job

i give you my best poetry worker impression
i say: “you can invest in anything. i’ll deliver you anything

if you choose it: everything.” that’s what a poem
ought to see, love like a chestnut tree, like a seadog

blooming at the top of the street. as if spring were still
happening, as it feels to me to be happening

the clouds glow across me. i play portishead and drink
less coffee, i drink whiskey. these are chilling times

but it’s another beautiful week in the spring of my heart
what is our role in the sick economy?

“as if a poem knew anything about that” i put cheese
and crackers on the table, and wine from the local

restaurants’ cellars. “you have to keep calm” and yet
rigorous. as if a poem were a dealership to scour

for what, a deal? as if a labour force were society’s
heroic backbone, and this were a political poem

not pasteurized. i love graffiti: names are magic
and they live forever on the walls in my city

and you get used to bludging, nudging things forward
your rainbow drawings strewn into the remedios varo landscape’s jaws

and creatures of habit can still go insane, can still do cocaine,
and complain: life’s hard! we have bugs in our bones

you’re feeling 4/10, despite things looking up
i’m desiccated and financially ruined, but i have a job

chugging along, as if a person, as if at a table
on pink grass, my dew evaporating into the daylight

Image: Alice Pasqual