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dough.

there were 5 bakers,

large young men

and they stood at

5 large wooden tables

working very hard,

not looking up.

they flipped the dough in

the air

and all the sizes and

designs were

different.

we were always hungry

and the sight of the men

working the dough,

flipping it in the

air was a wondrous

sight, indeed.

but then, it would come time

to leave

and we would walk away

carrying our heavy

shopping bags.

“those men have jobs,”

my father would say.

he said it each time.

every time we watched

the bakers he would say

that.

“I think I’ve found a new way

to make the hash,”

my mother would say

each time.

or sometimes it was

the weenies.

we ate the eggs all

different ways:

fried, poached, boiled.

one of our favorites was

poached eggs on hash.

but that favorite finally

became almost impossible

to eat.

and the potatoes, we fried

them, baked them, boiled

them.

but the potatoes had a way

of not becoming as tiresome

as the hash, the eggs, the

beans.

one day, arriving home,

we placed all our foodstuffs

on the kitchen counter and

stared at them.

then we turned away.

“I’m going to hold up a

bank!” my father suddenly

said.

“oh no, Henry, please!”

said my mother,

“please don’t!”

“we’re going to eat some

steak, we’re going to eat

steaks until they come out

of our ears!”

“but Henry, you don’t have

a gun!”

“I’ll hold something in my

coat, I’ll pretend it’s a gun!”

“I’ve got a water pistol,”

I said, “you can use that.”

my father looked at me.

“you,” he said, “SHUT UP!”

I walked outside.

I sat on the back steps.

I could hear them in there

talking but I couldn’t quite make it

out.

then I could hear them again, it was

louder.

“I’ll find a new way to cook everything!”

my mother said.

“I’m going to rob a goddamned

bank!” my father said.

“Henry, please, please don’t!”

I heard my mother.

I got up from the steps.

walked away into the

afternoon.

secret laughter

the lair of the hunted is

hidden in the last place

you’d ever look

and even if you find it

you won’t believe

it’s really there

in much the same way

as the average person

will not believe a great painting.

Democracy

the problem, of course, isn’t the Democratic System,

it’s the

living parts which make up the Democratic System.

the next person you pass on the street,

multiply

him or

her by

3 or 4 or 30 or 40 million

and you will know

immediately

why things remain non-functional

for most of

us.

I wish I had a cure for the chess pieces

we call Humanity…

we’ve undergone any number of political

cures

and we all remain

foolish enough to hope

that the one on the way

NOW

will cure almost

everything.

fellow citizens,

the problem never was the Democratic

System, the problem is

you.

an empire of coins

the legs are gone and the hopes—the lava of outpouring,

and I haven’t shaved in sixteen days

but the mailman still makes his rounds and

water still comes out of the faucet and I have a photo of

myself with glazed and milky eyes full of simple music

in golden trunks and 8 oz. gloves when I made the semi-finals

only to be taken out by a German brute who should have been

locked in a cage for the insane and allowed to drink blood.

Now I am insane and stare at the wallpaper as one would stare

at a Dalí (he has lost it) or an early Picasso, and I send

the girls out for beer, the old girls who barely bother to wipe

their asses and say, “well, I guess I won’t comb my hair today:

it might bring me luck.” well, anyway, they wash the dishes and

chop the wood, and the landlady keeps insisting “let me in, I can’t

get in, you’ve got the lock on, and what’s all that singing and

cussing in there?” but she only wants a piece of ass while she pretends

she wants the rent

but she’s not going to get either one of ’em.

meanwhile the skulls of the dead are full of beetles and Shakespeare

and old football scores like S.C. 16, N.D. 14 on a John

Baker field goal.