By Charly Fasano
Going to get to know himself better
by studying his fingerprints.
Wondering what got him here in the third place.
Going to get caught up in places
most people go to unwind.
Out of all the times he’s died
this one hurts the most.
Partly cloudy
There’s cages hanging from cranes building New Denver.
He picked a pretty good day to start huffing markers.
He sits on a cooler drinking can beer in a parking lot overlooking a parking lot,
with a cheap view of a country club.
Golfers graze children in the heavy rough
while they drink brunch down the fairway.
He’ll never figure out if it’s members only to play
or members only to watch.
He thinks of himself as a prophetic epileptic
all the waking ghost rides
tasting smells with a numb tongue
almost enjoys when tingles creep prepositional.
Startled asleep
still living
still partly cloudy but bright enough to wear sunglasses
the kind of day when he has to choose
between buying toilet paper and eating his cat.
A waffle and a cup of coffee hold hands and skip across a diner window.
Slow suicide sits in a booth sipping decaf
staring at a glass of whole milk
bacon
the cash register
a preacher’s wife
a chain smoker
any and every
things he can’t have.
Studying his fingertips
Trying to figure out what got him here in the first place.
Charly Fasano is a poet, performer, filmmaker and block printer, as well as a Westword-voted Colorado Creative. Fasano has read his poems with and shared the stage with bands like Lucero, Drag the River, Crime in Stereo, Madson Jones, Land Lines and The Queers. He is the founder of Fast Geek Press, Pretend You Can Reab audio zine, and As Well As Magazine. Fasano’s poems have appeared in Yellow Rake, Lubricated Magazine, Syntax Magazine, MovingPoems.com and Growing Strange Magazine. His book of poems, Next Analog Broadcast (2011) was published by Sunnyoutside Press, and was followed by a multimedia book and 7 inch called RETROSPECT/ED featuring the music of Lucero, released on Fast Geek Press in 2014.
