The Cheese of Nihilism
Something snaps
in the midst of provolone indulgence.
You leave one slice of dairy produce for the homeowners
and skulk away from the fridge.
Guilt ticks in syncopated time
the nervous twitchy second hand you can’t outrun.
Drink another cup of coffee.
Dance on Saturday night.
The cycle will never end.
Provolone is thick biting comfort – and it symbolizes
nothing.
It is the cheese
of nihilism.
Ziploc keeps the terrors away –
banished beyond the plastic membrane.
Meat is non-mammalian manna,
a pink fibrous protein paste,
nothing alive or dead, nothing finger-pointing,
nothing but something oddly filling, oddly desired,
oddly scratching some buried carnivorous itch,
oddly creating a new scathing tickle in its
stale synthetic sixth-hand stink.
Social(ist)
Conscience(ness)
suggests
restraint.
One slice of provolone was enough, don’t
down another cowpie, don’t capitalize
on this mooching opportunity.
Don’t take the glut of initiative and
sharpen your future jowls on this
clean-living Kansas family.
They work hard for their food
harvested locally what doesn’t come
packaged in thermowrap from Panama.
Agricultural loans are a commodity that
requires a middleman, that middleman
is the keeper of this suburban inn
to your chagrin.
You are in debt and you are in
a cushy interior, wood-paneled, linoleum-enameled
sustained on the buffalo-cleansed plains
maintained by the banker, fed by his clan
naked pinko citizen of canuckistan
sans health insurance
quaint pot-smoking
fur-trader from the north
inheritor of a false heritage
indian murderer, christ/spice worshipper
techno-shaman poseur
draped emperor
artiste.
Sustained
in a fantasy
far removed from satori
second cousin to zen
on enlightenment’s trail
nirvana’s mobius strip – hell of a trip.
You hear the call from the woods
beyond the cradle of culture.
Nihilistic cheese
rumbles in your stomach
chastises your existence
informs you in the nuisance of
gastronomic gnosis, you are
“taking up space!”
Air and water become resources
ziplocked in ever shrinking baggies
with rising sticker prices
and the lightbulbs flicker.
You don’t have the guts for this conjuring.
Sleep the sleep of the just,
the just that, the just so, the just whatever
just drunken Joe Sixpack, just
JB Menthols, the most cigarette for your dollar,
Joe unfiltered, Joe thousandaire
Joe Fate, Joe Pawn-scum, playing piece
passenger, consumer, phased-out machine tool
sagging muscles dripping with MSG
useless scrappy husk – where’s the cream filling?
Trust
the universe
is waiting to absorb you.
If you can’t beat ‘em
join ‘em, become one with
the cheesy gestalt.
Ф