Chuck Berry's Sideburns

Dissonance heaves its guts

Provides us with delectation

What a strange world this is

In which everything dies

Of envy and desire. What I need

Is to despair of ever finding an answer

And that will be the answer

The knife does not exist

Without an edge. Sometimes I think

I will and sometimes I think I won’t

This is why I prefer to go dark

And slow and grow wings out of my

Shoulder blades. I don’t expect

To go around sullen all the time

We older folks have to show the young

How to swerve into the landscape

Get off the main road and stand

On the stars. If a heat pierces your heart

Use it to cook an affection

Fall in love with cement

You may not use arithmetic

To chatter with poetry but the poetry

Will get you one way or another

Jump into a tuna Joan Baez in a T-shirt

There’s blood in your veins

Stitched together by ghosts

Ice cubes postulate the light of eternity

In tiny bubbles that sparkle

This is all mentally viable if you

Exasperate the logic of time

With the speedometer of the mouth

This is called concentration

It is how you will feel when you’re naked

In a beautiful raw umber with the density

Of Chuck Berry’s sideburns and your love

Is great and the morning shines and the nerves

Burn for a music to feed that heat