7 o'clock headache

trying to grasp your unrealised career
drops you into the subjective equivalent
of geological time, & you imagine
that what you're feeling right now
could well be akin to the look on the face
of the businessman who has just stalled
his HSV commodore at the petersham lights,
a complex bewilderment that this could be happening
to you (i.e., him), while a fortune in self-image
dissipates in the languid morning westerly.
but you're bored by all that dull shit,
momentarily convinced
you can pass off masculinity as an aesthetic choice
& not the stick we're all getting whacked with,
drinking like an abstract expressionist about to be
thrown from a new york bar. & now those triceps
standing halfway down the bus could be yours,
& the sky swinging over victoria road
is exactly as empty as you believe it to be,
your mood harnessed & walking
like that couple's cocker spaniel,
which, as they stop to goose each other
& rub their beards, waits patiently
for any notion to sink in.

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ted@magicdog.com -- 2 April 2000