Smoke and Flood

Look around there near the place
where I smoke and smoke,
just keep smoking and people
walk right up
and say you have to just quit
this dirty habit and I
just look out and think
about their habitual ignorance
that woman who killed her kids
and nieces and two other people
and hey, there's this really green
grasshopper sitting on the ashtray
which is filled with nicotine
tainted rain.
He has one very long antennae
I mean it is really long
like a hair and just noticing
how the bubbles appear in the puddles
in the grass from heaven
mineral charms casually dropping
by and a dragonfly
catches me by surprise
and then my boss calls me on my cell
are you still here?
Sure. She comes out to join me
such an honor, beautiful woman
cranky blonde not a blonde moment
in her and she says that was just
brilliant that thing I wrote
this morning about anolingus
and anorectal gonococcol esoterically
speaking and think
I'm a writer you know,
I write. All the time
but she wouldn't want to hear that
wouldn't understand
but it was indeed brilliant
full of words
so full of things
that don't touch me at all
clinical data is all it is
just stuff not like
that one that got canned
by the UN, he's a Dakik
his wife says life
has been so miserable
with the Dakiks
end of times and all
in the morning they believe
and by nightfall
they're heathens
but no
my boss wouldn't understand
about the time that it takes
to get from Sodom to Gomorrah
or the rationale
behind the missing bone
in the back
that got us upright
or the lie
of the transfiguration, no
and a few hours later on 80
I start yelling into
the cell to my sister,

It's Lordsburg!
You wouldn't believe it
it's just great, just wonderful
just like the rain that hit us
forty years ago and the cars all
lined up on either side of the flooded
road, stopped, not going anywhere
it was getting dark
Dad opened the door and walked up to the edge
rolled up his pants
we were all eyeballs and knuckles
at the dashboard
thinking,
will he make it, will he?

He got in there up to his ankles
and before you knew it
everyone filed right on through,
right on by
and the night took hold.
Should I say, this is true
about everyone I know?