glitch

a stretch to call it a battle…

i stare at the window
& question marks stand at attention,
& answers, with no punctuation marks of their own,
at a loss for words
shrug their shoulders, scratch their heads

i stare at natural, far off light,
& at trees, shadows, things alive,
& in dismay exclamation marks look at each other,
say to themselves: what’s the point?
all this dreaming, all this screaming
is making us lose our voice,
all it’s doing is giving us a headache—
the hell with grammar,
with calling attention to ourselves

i stare with false mirrors & get lost in thought,
in a series of ellipses, of caesuras,
of alternate takes not originally part of the LP

instead of, initially, going for the remote control,
of staring at the tv screen & not minding the glitch,
the ditch or the fill in the blanks

you have to be stupid enough
to give things a value,
give them the significance they don’t possess

you don’t go to see a musician,
you go to hear him play,
go to hear him browse & bruise himself

it’s important to have someone in your vicinity
to hate, foster wallace recommends,
does it count when that someone is you yourself?

on the highway you see the world in its hot new ride
pass you by,
like state troopers & ambulances
the rules, regulations of traffic don’t apply to it:
don’t know why, don’t know whether to wave
or give it your middle finger

i stare with scarce, exhausted resources
& i barter with myself,
a stretch to call it a battle, self-improvement

c. a. campos, 2012