Don't Ask/1980

Don't ask me who I'm speaking for who I'm talking to why I'm doing what I do in the light of my existence You rise you spit you brush you drink you pee you shit you walk you run you work you eat you belch you sleep you dream & that's the way it is In the morning tap water tasted fishy coffee sits in its decaffeinated cup caca & incense have a floating romance & a stale washcloth will make you smell doubly stale so don't get kissed on the cheek don't get licked on the neck at 8 a.m. the trains & buses are packed with folks farting their bread & butter farts the gymnasium is dominated by the stench of hot tennis shoes & one in the locker room a few silly-talking intellectual-looking coke-drinking cloth-dropping paper-littering spinach-pooting smug arrogant women wait to be waited on & in another locker room there are odors of crotches & jock straps bengay, tiger balm & burning balls sweat socks & sweat suits of body-building door-slamming iron-pumping phlegm-hawking men all sour & steamy & wrapped up together in a swamp of butt-popping towels but don't let it get you down don't let it psych you up Outside the ledges are loaded with pigeons clouds are seeded with homeless people & lyricism of the afternoon in a sub-proletarian madman squatting & vomiting from his bowels a brown liquid of death in front of your house & it's not happening because of you those socks don't stink because of me a bureaucrat is not a jerk because of us I'm not this way because of them you're not that way because of me don't ask about influences You rise you spit you brush you drink you pee you shit you walk you run you work you eat you belch you sleep you dream & that's the way it is