sweaty palms,
hiccup,
sinuses,
rash,
itch,
cough,
but ignore the symptoms,
for all intents and purposes,
i’m a porpoise for you,
or,
i should say,
i have porpoise for you
bad business ideas look like
poetry
written in the form of a legal form
made to look official by clerical errors
made out of papier-mache blocks in an endless
road
leading nowhere, because it’s not the road
to be taken, but rather the diversion necessary
one day, i think you’re going to die,
but don’t think i’m getting out of this alive either,
because i’m not,
though maybe if we keep writing about death and the end and the inevitable and truth and power and sex and rage and happiness and fear and anxieties, then
perhaps,
though i’m not certain,
but perhaps,
there might be sour skittles left at the end of this trail,
and our last breaths can be the puckering astringency of artificially colored sugar
journeying down our digestive tracks,
as we die,
as i die,
but i’m almost certain that it was all deserved
Fred Aiken Writing 