Invoices

--August 11, 1993

Looking for that quiet center
where past and future fall away
Wooden gizmos from FAO Schwarz
that turn ribbons into handles
on the chest of winners
of some big race to no conceivable
end
A grand oval going round and round
at top speed before a great grandstand
filled with faceless spectators
Everything is blurred Ray-Ban
On the aviator face of a flying
fashion statement
Coming out of the printer going into the
envelope arriving in my mailbox and
screaming "you owe, you owe" and
wonder
"who REALLY gives a fuck?"
The coffee cup says taxes are voluntary
Isn't that true of all of life?
Sliding down the pole to the engines
Revving at full speed just like Bucky said
a hundred million horses all jumping up and down
and going nowhere
Along the white rail fences
And the big money success stories that
seem unattainable to mortals
Between the covers of weird
science fiction books that are no less plausible
than what I face everyday.