What It Is To Have Tenure by Jay Passer

I summon the battleships
my doppelgänger resides overseas
the media chatter splits anvils
I’m broke on barefoot bottles
against the regime of disinformation
I went gray and stooped in minutes
I lost some weight when removed of kneecaps
my surveillance was confiscated
I listen to the same song over and over
obsessed with botched executions
I consume frozen burritos
waiting for the dry cycle to finish spinning
just in time to fall off the mountain
I don’t expect miracles
I grope at the cumulus of the sky for some scratch
I give Achilles a run for his money
onset of a pantheon employing Black Op directives
while grifting me at every chance
I hope and pray I awaken from the psychotropics
to corral killer whales and brainwash berserk rhinos
I extradite my sovereign collection of lovers and rivers
I ought to be committed
I ought to run for office
I ought to clench my teeth in defiance
of what’s
best for me.

Jay Passer’s work has appeared online and in print since 1988. He lives and works in San Francisco, the city of his birth. His latest chap, Flower Omelette, co-authored with Misti Rainwater-Lites, is available from Lulu.