The Cerebral Catalyst

nightmare #1

baby Moses going over
the falls in a barrel
lands in the hands
of the land
of Cleveland
where "so much
really depends
on a red wheelbarrow"
can you tell me where the
hell's the methadone clinic?
watercolor wilderness
changing colors
by the ferry
where they keep
the factories and fairies
ice fishing through fossils
through all evil influences
to eerie fantasies
tugging up old
blue velvet coat
where family, friend & foe
will try to steal your soul
and got no other choice
with a hook through
jaw but to perservere
to finally know for sure—
"it's only a paper moon"
and kids driven home
brooding through the
school bus window
through leaves and
lagoons wondering
is this all I got to
look forward to?

nightmare #2

all the friends
you never
really had

nightmare #3

literally find yourself
yelling at Timex radio
at the top of your lungs
go to hell white devil!
go to hell white devil!
as these days on com-
mercials they deliberately
read small print out loud
so fast you feel like
you're being taken
advantage of...

nightmare #4

I have no one
to talk to

nightmare #5

none of this is real
this is too realistic

nightmare #6

tonight I planted
black & white tulips

nightmare #7

I smile for all
the wrong reasons

nightmare #8

I have never gotten
comfortable with
this existence

nightmare #9

perhaps brief, fleeting
interludes with wild
women, falling
alseep with convicts
on the back of buses
zooming through endless
nights of Montana, Reno,
the morning bridge that leads
from Oakland to San Francisco,
trips to Paris, spooning 'neath
snowy covers of winter with
your first girlfriend from the
Rhineland who didn't know
I was Jewish, fell in love
with her and wanted to
marry her but had to
head back to college
and her back to Berlin

nightmare #10

all of them
are worthless

nightmare #11

origami boat waits for me by shore
with gigolos & rabid dogs

evil old women
laughing & barking

from safe &
secure slums

cherubic kids trained
to follow orders

picking
up stones

nightmare #12

you bury fossils
of ancestors
like a bone

nightmare #13

slaughterhouse lights
flashing on in the castle
and sacrifices
at the disco

nightmare #14

"tonight I'm gonna party like it's 1999"
wow, that's become the past?

past-perfect...
do you remember where you were...

nightmare #15

it's not so much
the same recurring dream
just the same recurring sleaze

nightmare #16

resistance is futile
only when you happen
to look at it in that context

nightmare #17

somehow we supposedly
know God exists and can't see him
but would be a hard sell to prove that we exist
while seeing way too much of ourselves in this

nightmare #18

Jesus walked on lagoons too
after being chased through
the courtroom window
by Samuel Clemens crew
by that sleazy preacher
who flipped out on Joe Buck
in Midnight Cowboy
after spending
a night in tombs
after being roughed up
by the cops in New York
still confused about what
he was being accused of

nightmare #19

you eat chicken wings
(with Fresca by your side)
in a cul-de-sac at night
wondering why your wife
won't invite you into her bed
princess from the Bronx, New York
I mean isn't this what marriage is all about?

nightmare #20

yet still somehow
find yourself on your knees
begging her for your forgiveness

nightmare #21

kissing her feet
yet can't find them
I guess a little like the scene
from Wizard of Oz where that house
fell on the Wicked Witch of the West

nightmare #22

(or was that
the east?)

nightmare #23

your wife a beauty
and you the beast

nightmare #24

you always
manage to retort
as a last resort—
"well I landscape!"

nightmare #25

you go down to the television
to get the weather and scores

nightmare #26

defensive tackle
defense attorney

nightmare #27

underground widow
reads Shakespeare
by chandelier
old man took off on her
when her head was turned
on a motorcycle to Arizona
yet for the better
no less the wiser
now just gets visited
by the crow & wind

nightmare #28

where all denial comes to life
all crooks all creeps
who brought fright
and made you
just want to
break down
and cry

nightmare #29

nausea,
suicide

nightmare #30

like that late-great ancient
abandoned rollercoaster
suddenly starting
up in the sky

nightmare #31

became a thief
just to get by

nightmare #32

all your best friends
all your best girlfriends
were klutzes from some
form of abuse or another.
back then we had no idea
as they did these sudden
slapstick pratfalls out of
nowhere that we'd all
crack up on having no
idea where it came from.
they used to label us
as "self-destructive"
"attention-seeking"
"oppositional"
"at risk" as we'd
get even more
resentful and
bark back—
"at risk
for what!"

nightmare #33

blocking! blocking! blocking!
payback's a motherfucker!
don't hate me 'cause I'm beautiful!

nightmare #34

punch-
line with-
out a joke

nightmare #35

glimmer
of hope.

______________________________________
Joseph Reich is a social worker who works out in the state of Massachusetts; a displaced New Yorker, who sincerely does miss diss-place, most of all the Smoothies on Houston Street, the Thai food, and bagels and bialys from The Lower East Side; When we all get a little older, hopes to bring wife and child back to play in the parks and playgrounds of New York. His work has appeared in such literary journals as Poesy, Dispatch, Falling Star, Color Wheel, Bareback, And Then, Graffiti Rag, Main Street Rag, Bouillabaisse, Decanto, Rogue's Scholar, Poetry Motel, The Beat, The Potomac, Poetry Super Highway, Panic Brixton Poetry, Istanbul Literature Review, The Taj Mahal Review, Stirring, Scrivener Creative Review, Thieves Jargon, CC & D, Down In The Dirt and Ascent Aspirations.

posted 12.10.07.

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