TOM DVORSKE
It’s 5 a.m. and this candle is burned down
to a nub like my drug-limp penis.
A car narrates the intersection.
Stop lights blink, de-programmed
for another hour at least. It’s cold
though my open window admits no
wind, only raucous bird songs that
hemorrhage in my eyes.
I’m practicing to forget, so when
I’ve forgotten it will surely never return.
This requires discipline, active
reenactment of what must be forgotten
so that forgetting affirms the absence
of purpose, ritual.
I’m constructing a culture.
The will to exclude is the first rule.
The second: to exclude.
The third: worse. And
the fourth: extreme prejudice.
One must be tolerant of these ideas
There is no other way;
the object of exclusion does not matter.
Go ahead. Pick anything.