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POETRY
Stop Making Sense
Burning Down The House
Burned all my notebooks. What good are notebooks?
They won’t help me survive.
My chest is aching, burns like a furnace.
The burning keeps me alive. — The Talking Heads, “Love During Wartime”
Stop talking. Don’t move.
Just sit, consume, and be consumed
While the house burns down.
I forgot to mention that the house is burning down.
Okay, move. You need to move to do your work,
You need to do your work to make your money,
You need to make money to consume and be consumed.
Don’t think of consumption
As an emptying out,
A gutting by fire,
But as fulfillment, satiety.
Alight with an eternal blaze
Like the God the Sun prays to.
Eat a chocolate freezer treat.
What a luxury.
You feel naughty: spent but full.
How decadent. So rich. What a thrill.
As your house burns down,
Chuck in the wrapper and the stick.
Try to save your clothes.
The clothes make the man.
Try to save your money.
Try to save your family.
Don’t make a sound
While the house is burning down.
Calmly feed your debts and regrets, one by one,
Into the conflagration.
