Joseph James Cawein

SHOW'S OVER, OREGON, TURN OUT THE LIGHTS ON JOE

They watch the news in nightly electric radiated dreamscapes,
the novel invention of living rooms & cast iron testicles
dislodging the parentheses of universe soup.
Downtown clowns drowning sounds from elevators.
Will there come a knock
at the door? A voice one pitch
higher than normal, the snarling
of a dog.

Crouching in dormitory
smoke-eyed bleary oblivion,

will there come man with a gun
and hurl suitcase out the window,

do they not account for
shit thrown out the window?

Been thrown out the window before,
I imagine, desperate in Dallas
with tattooed face and
thin wisp of arms cuffed in the cruiser,
gaping eyes & skinny vagina.
Lonely Texas casualty
wildly glowing unrequited
and narcotic hazel.

Hours and showers
and cocaine roar.
Powder face more a disposition
than sentiment, disposing sentience
more a task than idle virtue.

Reality: vested policemen in dormitory hall
with sullen and leering dispositions,
didn't have me pegged
at least I hope.

Never known time to be so still
or heart to race so fast.
Shouts and barking,
two shots
& silence.


Gerald So reads "Show's Over, Oregon, Turn Out the Lights on Joe":



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Joe confesses nothing.


JOSEPH JAMES CAWEIN is a 21-year-old college student. Supplemental information strikes him as frivolous.