A WAY SOMEHOW
I don’t know, at
times,
if you are
really people, I
know you are
people, I mean,
you aren’t
walking on fours, and you
wear clothes.
(But sometimes, when
you’re naked, I
don’t know if you are human,
and get
confused, that’s why I don’t
go to strip
joints anymore, or have sex.)
How did you all
become people? How did
you get so good
at showing up on time for work,
and doing what
your manager says, how did you
get so good at
being detailed-oriented. There
is an ad on
Craigslist for a processor, that says, “We are
looking for
someone seriously ready to start a career
and care about
the work they do every day.”
Seriously the ad
doesn’t even state what the
company
produces? How the fuck can you people
care about some
unknown something, will you even care
after you get
the job?
How do you
become a person?
Usually, instead
of trying to get a job,
I listen to
music on YouTube, instead of being
a person, I try
to become the notes of songs,
the chord
structure of “Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow”
covered by Amy
Winehouse, I want to become that song, I
learn
the song
on guitar and strum it on my adobe porch thing,
trying to become
non-human, sometimes I try to become
the taste of a
Carl’s Jr. cheeseburger, I want to be
that delicious,
that bad for you.
Sometimes I
listen to Amitabha chants,
Navajo chants,
even old
Kentucky Old
Regular Baptists call out chants, I
want to be a
pure feeling, that may lead to heaven,
but instead I am
Noah Cicero, sometimes I scream, I
can’t be
controlled, I can’t be tamed, because I
don’t know what
to be—
When you see a
pronghorn antelope from your car, high up
north in Nevada,
by the Walker River Rez. I don’t know
what to be, the
antelope, the person seeing the antelope, the grass
that the
antelope is eating, the feeling the person gets from
seeing the
antelope, the feeling the antelope has while
eating the
grass, so I try to be all things, then I realize,
I’m just wind,
swirling and swirling, and it is okay, and
it isn’t okay,
and all will
work itself out, something is taking its course, but
it never works
out, and all all all it comes, and the wind
shaking the
leaves of the palm tree, the hum of bugs, and
me trying to
find a job on Craigslist.
VALLEY OF FIRE
Sometimes I lie
down
in the desert,
trying to
become
as quiet as a
cactus
sometimes I
wish
I could become
a cactus
My favorite
cactus is the
escobaria
vivipara—
It is funny, it
is shaped
like a
beehive.
HAN SHAN GETS A JOB ON COLD MOUNTAIN
“Can’t you get
a job using your degree”
“I’m sure you’ll
get a job by the end
of next week”
“Have you tried
Indeed.com”
“Have you tried
convenience stores”
“Have you tried
job fairs”
“Have you tried
Facebook”
“Have you tried
watching YouTube
tutorials on how
to get a job”
Noah looks up
and points at them—
pokes them in
the chest—
God made me a
poet—
God made Han Shan
a poet,
He put Han Shan
on Cold Mountain,
and he put me in
this desert.
I’ve never asked
any of you
to stop making
money
to work less
hard
For me to write
of Cold
Mountain.
I must live
there,
at all times.
On the summit,
in the caves,
sleeping under
the bristlecone pines,
because you
can’t live
on Cold
Mountain.
You have better
things to do.
My job is to
bring you water
from the melted
snow
that makes its
streams,
so when you need
Cold Mountain
I’ll be there
to provide you
with water.
But for right
now,
leave me the
fuck alone!
I’m on Cold
Mountain
and I’ll come
down
when the wind
tells me to,
not because of
an ad on
Craigslist!
These poems were
originally published in Noah Cicero's latest collection of poetry Bipolar
Cowboy [Lazy Fascist Press]. They have
been republished here on ÖMËGÄ with Noah's consent :)
***
Noah Cicero (b. 1980) is the author of six novels: The Insurgent (2010), Treatise (2008), Burning Babies
(2006), The Condemned (2006), The
Human War (2003), which was made into a feature
film last year and is currently in post-production, and Best Behavior (2009), which was published briefly and in entirety
on his blog and of which an excerpt can be read here. He is also the author of three e-books, transmissions
from noah x to tao x (2006), The
Living And The Dead (2006), Nosferatu (2008), which can be read at bear parade. His
work has been translated to German and Polish. He lives in Youngstown, Ohio and
works in a restaurant.
