Kleenex
Atomic Armstrong
kills an ant for poetry
because he’s a sellout poet
and he has to keep the counter clean
okay, he wants to keep the counter clean
infestation is a state of mind
Atomic Armstrong
crushes an ant under a kleenex
because he doesn’t want ant goo staining his finger
Atomic Armstrong
wonders if the guilt is
bleeding heart bullshit?
or has he failed to come to terms
with the point he’s come to
that is, such detachment from life
the basic breathing bleeding baseline
that the ant must die
not for survival
but to calm the shivers
of imagined infestation
that state of mind
such a solipsistic
sell out
that’s what sellout is
just your standard synthetic human sellout
clean counters, commerce, bottom line
how can you not buy in?
you’d have to be as bonkers as Buddha
so easy to kill ants, so sadly easy
they’re at his mercy but he can’t hear them beg
and after twenty two dead ants, crushed under kleenex
a spider crawls along the killing counter
Atomic Armstrong lets the spider live
it’s bigger, messier, not quite faceless enough
he goes back to packing bread
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