Self-Pity Poems with a Dust Bunny Included

SELF-PITY POEM

I am sad because Google has banished my blog.


SELF-PITY POEM

I feel Nan Goldin should take a picture

of what Google did to me.



SELF-PITY POEM

I can't even be in the Google American tree.


SELF-PITY POEM

Oh, why was I ever given a self?


SELF-PITY POEM

Why does my self have to be the kind that shakes itself

to the point of shaken baby syndrome

and get away with it


just like that evil British nanny girl?


SELF-PITY POEM

Why do t.v. gurus and websites lie

and say you can change your self for a different one?



SELF-PITY POEM

abcdefg hijklmnop qrs tuv wxyz



SELF-PITY POEM

Real abuse is not something funny.

It's not something to be made light of in a poem.


It's something that should only exist

between a self and a self.


And, ideally, those selves

should be the same self.


And then they should feel free

to wallop away all day.




SELF-PITY POEM (to a receptionist)

"No. I'm not here the more glamorous type of 'self-abuse.'"


SELF-PITY POEM

Why don't I feel Catholic enough?

Is it because I didn't join the Church

or attend any of the services?


SELF-PITY POEM

I though agnosticism could protect me.

Boy was I wrong!

As wrong as Tokyo was about Godzilla.



SELF-PITY POEM

(overheard, woman on the street)


"Even potato chips frighten me now

because of the potential

for palatal damage."



SELF-PITY POEM


I wanted to stop you

and congratulate you

for using the word "palatal."



SELF-PITY POEM


Is that smug?

To congratulate someone

on using the word "palatal?"


Does that constitute an insidious attempt

to build a bridge of superiority


over the thin public air?




SELF-PITY POEM

I am beginning to see

my skull instead of my face.

when I look in the mirror.



SELF-PITY POEM

If I were an actor,

could I play a different part?


Or does that sort of camouflage

offer zero protection really?




SELF-PITY POEM

Baidu in China.

Thank you for treating me nicer

than Google does.


I like your panda paw print.



SELF-PITY POEM

I made this cardboard sign:

"WILL WORK FOR GOOGLE CITATIONS"


I'm looking for a freeway right now.


SELF-PITY POEM


I have this iffy relationship

with food lately.



SELF-PITY POEM



I try to interrogate my food

before I eat it.

But in a nice way.


Sometimes the food doesn't comply


and I feel like the Food Gestapo.


Baked potatoes are usually compliant.


Horseradish has the fire of the Resistance.




SELF-PITY POEM

My friends are sad or broke or sad and broke.

Still, they are pretty.


Pretty glass animals.


I keep them on a shelf

and look at them sometimes.




SELF-PITY POEM

I am a bitchy glass animal.

I fell off the shelf long ago.


I wrote an entire novel

in the form of a monologue,

and recited it to a dust bunny


who happened to be resting


near where I landed when I fell.



SELF-PITY POEM

The dust bunny just happened

to be near where I landed

when I fell off the shelf.


I'm not sure if the dust bunny

ever heard anything I said.


When I spoke my novel to it.



SELF-PITY POEM


I would capitalize the dust bunny's

"name" like this: Dust Bunny


if I was sure the Dust Bunny

really was conscious

when I recited my long travail.


But I'm fairly certain



I will never know the answer.



SELF-PITY POEM

It is possible the dust bunny

was in a medically-induced coma.


The dust bunny empathy might have been

covered up by modern medicine


and its insidious silencing tactics


vis-a-vis the life and death struggle.





SELF-PITY POEM


It is possible the dust bunny

was in a self-induced coma.


That happens too.



SELF-PITY POEM

It is possible the dusty bunny

was practicing "literary criticism"

by not speaking


when I recited my long novel

after falling off the shelf.



SELF-PITY POEM

You see, I was part of a Glass Menagerie.

I think it was American poetry.

There were a lot of glass animals.


Many of them are still on the shelf.


You push a button in their back

and they start to speak and speak and speak

and sometimes sing.


I think the musical component

was made in China.


But the message is in English,

narrowly cheerful.



SELF-PITY POEM


Possibly the dust bunny

had decided to NEVER speak to a glass animal

should it fall off the shelf


and land in the environs.


It might have been a territorial thing


or just a mentally territorial thing.


SELF-PITY POEM


I can't defend myself

by insulting the dust bunny's tastes

as I don't know


the dust bunny's taste

or even if it has a taste or tastes.


It's almost as if the dust bunny

had blocked me on FACEBOOK


before we had ever met.



SELF-PITY POEM


I bet the dust bunny

is on FACEBOOK.




SELF-PITY POEM


I bet the dust bunny

1) is on FACEBOOK

2) has more friends than I do on FACEBOOK

3) gets more empathetic responses its postings on FACEBOOK than I do

4) talks shit about me on FACEBOOK in private chat

and

5) has now blocked me on FACEBOOK because it had to feign unconciousness the whole time I was reading my novel to it, that time I fell off the glass animal shelf


SELF-PITY POEM


I am jealous of the dust bunny.

I don't want to be a dust bunny.

All that rolling, rolling, rolling.

Like tumbleweed.


But still.




SELF-PITY POEM

I don't want to be the dust bunny.


But can't I still just resentfully wallow
a little while here?


Quietly?




SELF-PITY POEM

I bet the dust bunny has no health or money problems.

I bet the dust bunny breeds like rabbits.

I bet the dust bunny has a Hummer and a hybrid.

I be the dust bunny has a Hummer and a hybrid mind

and chooses the context of the social gathering


to dress its dust bunny self and its dust bunny mind.



SELF-PITY POEM

Dust bunnies usually do feel superior.

They are all under the same great bed together.


SELF-PITY POEM

How do I get into the Dust Bunny Collective?

I know that's one way to get my book published.

But I heard they don't allow glass animals to join.


They don't publish that in their guidelines.


They use Gestapo words like "unsolicited."


SELF-PITY POEM


Unsolicited is German for Non-Dust Bunny.

It's just like the Aryan coloring books Hitler gave out.



SELF-PITY POEM


I would love to see a fight to the death

between a dust bunny and a scientologist.


Just once.



SELF-PITY POEM


Once, a dust bunny got mad at me

because I made fun of Fight Club.


SELF-PITY POEM


I am a tiny glass animal.

You can just look through me and watch television.

Pretend I'm not even here.


If I grew tits though, you would stare.


And that might be uncomfortable.



SELF-PITY POEM

Dust bunnies do most of their work

while I'm asleep.

Right under my bed.


Do they have no shame?




SELF-PITY POEM


Once, I passed a dust bunny

in the halls where I go for therapy

but I knew the dust bunny was faking mental illness.


There was some sort of scheme or research

going on.


Dust bunnies are invulnerable.


It was such an Invasion of the Body Snatchers moment.


I think the dust bunny said, "Hey."

As though we were a similar species.

And I think I said "Hey" back.


I didn't want the dust bunny to suss me out

right there.


He could have had a dust bunny pod

in the glove compartment of his car just waiting.



SELF-PITY POEM

What if I gave it some crumbs.

If I fed the dust bunny.

Or some of my hairs I was shedding.


Would that be like love?


Would the dust bunny understand

I was freely giving a gift

or would it be interpreted as weakness,


a form of surrender.


Would it turn that dust bunny ravenous?





SELF-PITY POEM


This is a Monday

but I've already had a whole week

of anxiety.


It's too late to pro-rate it.




SELF-PITY POEM


I worry about dying

but not Death so much.


I think it's the other way

around with dust bunnies.


Dust bunnies are strong.



SELF-PITY POEM

The only difference between the Aryan Brotherhood

and dust bunnies

is that when a dusty bunny

crosses their brotherhood


nobody ever finds that dust bunny again.


Not even the special task force.




SELF-PITY POEM


O Dust Bunny, may I read my novel to you again?

I am just lying here sidewise on this carpet

and have nothing else to do.


SELF-PITY POEM


It's true the first few lines are stolen from a Morrissey song

but I trust you will forgive that.


I can sing them if you'd like...


"Call me morbid, call me pale...




SELF-PITY POEM

Sometimes I think my pillows are God.

I believe He has shown me this one Kindness.

And incarnated.


The red chenille one that leaves marks

on my face and ears


is doubtless the Blessed Virgin.



SELF-PITY POEM

If you are a glass animal,

you should send me something in the mail.


But make sure you address it to me

so the dust bunny doesn't get it first.


That could be Dire.