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Arm Wrestling With Fate
My guru carries a set of brass knuckles
you'd think he'd be all yes sir and no sir
but instead I get ahah hoho and egad
I can't do anything right on my best day
and I have the branding iron scars to prove it
tattooed in diagonals like barricade tape
Hank's Motor Cottages Sleep With Hank
yes that's his name my guru Hank
he just told me to say menacing presence
instead of the more benign guru baba
a strange man a man of banal mystery
it is becoming evident that he knows nothing
simply landed a place to send his mail
I only let him shave in the kitchen
when he rides in on the Western Pacific
outdoor seating fresh air enjoyable panorama
he likes the outdoors and strangely enough
also likes acres of humming server farms
with a couple of slow pinwheel generators
on a naked hill of uranium tailings nearby
the readings aren't what they used to be
but the kangaroo rats are as big as kangaroos
so you have to drive real slow at night
and keep the fissured windows rolled up
if you have a car like Hank's Hudson Hornet
coffee can sized pistons twin carburetors
and a back seat big enough to live in
it was a big improvement over under a train trestle
Hank has seen a lot of the world and its trestles
been beat up and falling down drunk in a lot of cities
but learned to hit back and take names
his brindle Great Dane has a funny name for a dog
it is Arthur and he can bark it like a battle cry
AR-THURF he goes when Dandelion Hank's cat
taunts him from the back seat rear shelf
Hank dropped in to shave just last night
so we're lucky to have his wisdom right here
for example he has solved world insanity
set your head on fire is basically it
but it probably won't catch on
people believing their own lies
has a momentum to tilt all the ten pins
over at the Bowl and Boogie Lanes
when it's Cicada Night
and the ladies get in free
Copyright ©
Walter Alter
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