If 
there 
were
no
authors,
there
would
be
no
accountability
or
responsibility.

Modernity 
on the British tongue 
sounds like
Maternity,
except of course
there is a "d"
and
not a "t"
in there.

In America it is more of
the "mod" part of modernity,
which is stressed and apt
just to sound more
"mud" 
than 
"mod".

This morning on my way 
to the mail
I passed a house that looked
to be the definition of "modernity" -
or the "modern",
depending on how you say it,
or where you say it.

That isn't to say that it was 
industrial and/or recalled
octopus trains
stretching American grain fields
to a group of Molly McGuires
in a factory town...
...though in a sense,
or to my senses,
it did collapse an expanse.

A
house
two triangle slabs
a slice of yellow
between.

It
sat
cavased
backed
on 
a
large 
lot.

But,
what truly
came to define it -
or make me realize that
somewhere in my head
I'd collapsed something
were the two teenagers
waiting for the bus
in
front
of
the
house:

Smoking.

My brother 
and I
bought shirts
that match,
the difference is
that his head is bare
and mine has a hat.

I washed
my pants,
and
now they
fit again.

There is a 
preconceived notion
about
shoes -
and the people
who like them.

When she comes
in the mailroom
with glee,
and calls me a liar of happiness,
because I've missed the fact
that shoes have arrived,
I think of the time I was in 
a foreign country
with a big suitcase,
the size of
a small foreign car's trunk.

In the case, I had:
some
paper
and
a lot of
empty space.

My girlfriend saw the space -
And put it to good use
by filling it with shoes.

Perhaps my
"preconceived notion",
that in the grand physics
of the cosmos,
women are inexorably 
linked to shoes,
is unfounded.

But I'm glad that women
like shoes.
It makes
for
a
very
mysterious
life.

The people 
who you thought 
looked nice

aren't

And the people
who you thought
were mean

weren't

But it is still
pretty stereotypical
when you get down
to it.

The thin box
sits between the
two similar boxes
filling the space
of the room
attempting something
for myself -
but then
the man
comes and moves them,
my ears buzzing.

There is
some arrogant dick
and
some stuck on herself cunt
and
a
mother fucking, 
father fucked
system
involving time-sheets
that
for some idiotic reason
every blind somebody
thought worked -

- when
the only
thing
really
working
is
"I".

There is no shape  
             that the words carve out  
                to match the roar I anticipate  
                   in waiting to hear  

A city a man  
      no more  
 a wilderness of men and (women)  
         a structure  
             structure-less  
   sought where it isn't  
mown  

The only garden  
       a Dunkin Donuts  
never closed   
          always clean   
the young girl behind the counter  
                        who smiles and speaks  
                           in a language   
                               I cannot understand
(and still the women's bathroom is
out of order - something is amiss
in paradise)

Against
   the grass uncut
      as mist falls
   bending
light over
   wrappers and cans
      round beneath the rusted bridge
   where a man hangs
by a cable

There too i think i have an idea
  for a poem
    something to get this voice
      of the moment
to put it down
  to map it out
    when the reality is
      maps litter the backseat
        taken from the center
          where the man speaks a history
            that turns in and over itself
              wrapping me by
         in squares
lines
       and
names
      that
      do
or
  don't

There's no way out of this
place but living
in a roar
of fevered streets
alive in the light
alive in the dark
where
there
never
was
a
poem
to
begin
with

Only a winding NJ turnpike
scattered with ridiculous $0.35 tolls