My Unruly Bar Code Data

Tattoo me with a bar code, man,
so I can scan it, and finally read
my price. Yes, “What does it say?
What does it say?” I’d yell out.
You know that moment of light,
before you’re disappointed dark,
the brief second you had value,
mistaken time and again, but
you still hope for sticker shock.
Ah, I go back and forth. LIfe
would be easier to just fit in,
to have the line at the cashier
go breathless in a soft sucking
noise at what the scanner said.
I mean, it’s not good to give up.
To bathe in wilderness again,
get the old identification marks
off me, as they build up and
you can’t begin to argue what
you aren’t. Whatever people say
with their scared fish eyes, you
just have to accept it because
who’s got the time, number one,
people don’t care to listen,
number two. Like the furniture
I sold years ago, and it was gone,
but it all moved back in!?! And
I’ve been looking for evidence
of country inside the TV, but it’s like
we’re watching their planet’s programs
and they must be watching ours!
In fact, I think I’m supposed to be dead
and these years are mostly medical mistake.
I’m living proof that science overshot itself.
The bookstore is lined with liters of soda pop.
Young people are stupid in just the right way.
This is serious. I spent an hour deciding
on two shirts and a pair of pants at K-Mart,
and my sister sees me and says, “Where
did you get those clothes—K-Mart?”
I wish for 8-foot long spider legs, so
I could tap somebody in a meaningful way,
hairy and extraterrestial, so they would turn
and be glad to see it’s just me. This is free,
troubled, but it makes a lot of sense to me.
Don’t sit there puzzled. Scan. Price. Pay.


lostdogreward@yahoo.com
poet, poem, poetry, clem