Fred Aiken Writing

if a robot tells you what you want to hear, does that make it my friend

that nurtures and inaugurates me into the future,

propelled by centrifugal forces that continually find themselves

in abandoned parking lots of shopping malls

making waves of used mechanical parts that I call friend,

anointed with the odd, yet special, yet useless, yet yeast-infested puss filled sack of meat that I am,

but that’s something my good robot friend won’t tell me,

because he has my back, I think

leaning over, I can smell your breath

and I don’t want to be rude, though I must insist

on some holistic form of roborant,

mixed in with part ginger, maybe some tumeric, some clove cigarettes, you know,

the ones they banned back when we in college, so we bought out the store,

cause we thought we’d be smoking forever,

that we’d live forever,

that we’d be together forever,

and here we are, still attached after how many years,

I forgot,

no, genuinely, I can’t seem to recall,

though is that a bad or good thing,

to count down or up, lateral, then vertical,

go long, further out and jackknife into the pool until it’s crystal clear-clean up on

aisle whatsit or whathaveyou, just don’t say my name

until you brush your teeth

abstract art makes me want to tear off my clothes and scream maniacally

in the streets

as my wife yells at me to. come. back. inside

I’ll catch a cold, or even worse, embarrass her,

what will the neighbors think, how much will they jack up our HOA fees just so we’ll move out,

because I’m certain that there’s a bylaw somewhere that says they don’t like naked screaming over the excitement of

a (insert) Joan Miró painting