BRUSHING

I drop in to the unemployment office,
I wait and wait for them to call my name
and stamp my paper with a watered down pink
ink round stamp saying 
I stamped this then, boom! stamped,
 go
 home and wander 
around the room,
wonder
what the hell to do,
how to get a job 
or if you want to.

And in no uncertain terms 
an answer 
from mom 
comes
stern and mono-syllatone, demanding
progress, evolving;
you cant stay here forever,
move it!
march in your step
and learn 
each step
need not be a step beyond,
step up
or step beneath.

A step
could be brushing your teeth,

they sure do need it.
A
weekend's worth of crust's accumulated,
a wretched chalky scum has crept
in to life and teeth and credit 
and your mouth with biting irony relfects it 
 A
brushing could bring in clean-ness
blood and mintiness, mingling
healing as they scar the addled germs
with sizzling flouride, protect and serve
 in a timeless struggle,
keep the worms off 
until your finished with that mouth,
keep it, you need it
to speak or shout or kiss with,
keep the dust & decay of others away,  
keep thy mouth locked tight to cleanliness
in one long and mad embrace;
every brush 
a stroke of grace,
a cleansing light that wipes out corners,
cleansing even hidden memories
I thought I'd swallowed lifetimes ago,
but no, they sleep
still undigested, childhood fear
that won't let go, a carroway seed
I'd thought was tooth.

That
smile is hard to keep
brushing,
your brushing for some peace
but 
the dirt keeps coming
even if you do not eat
even if you stop your breathing
the dirt would come from
someplace deeper, some
restless, sullen organ denied
its red blood dinner
sending out it's complex signals
along the blood postal route
waiting for help to come,
waiting for some medicine

Fight starvation, 
Bite me

Find starvation hidden
in a basket of fishes
Christ can make them a million
you make them offal, energy, dirty dishes.
Take them
to the sink
to rinse,
to the sea to wash the feet of the lepers,
to the sink of man's awareness--
the drain so deep and meaningless,
and the food we grind with water down
to god is moisture and the sound of love
and prospered children, he breathes your
life from the ancient footprint to step in outer-space
and then beyond your mind's endurance
and then breathes on,
And bids us grind him down some more
so once again
to the sink with filthy dishes
there already gathered, father's,
aunt's and grandmothers, your
cleaning them as punishment
for what
else is there...?

In the cleaning sink the cleaner is cleaning
the dishes, whistling operatic attempts at tuneage,
gazing dazedly for soap spots and grease 
and remembering the dawn of dirty, 
That sad mistake that makes us do this,
that seperates us from the elements,
makes us brush
off the dirt and fibrous filaments of earth and soot
from our habiliments,

makes us cook our food in fire and garlic
    when blood is always best it's freshest,
makes us fry our eggs and salt them
to taste and beyond limits of gastric enduration

it struck us underneath the skin
so we made coats for protection,
symbolising the need for long-term
psycholgical evaluation to our
fellow cave man.
 
A disease that defined
a fear of dirt in it's host's frail mind,
A dirt-consciousness that decides
to cleanse itself of lies and germs,
through cleverness and
even limits of perception,
it erodes a hole where to
it can bring it's little stash of
food it 
    stole
from you.
Within
this hole you
might see
a light
or a different ocean
get
in tight as the hole opens
sneak inside
behind the door
inside the thighs
alive and kicking
within the womb
within your flesh 
within lust and
lies.
Lies that stuff is clean,
stuff isn't,
lies that teeth wont soon fall dry
and tongues curled like parchment
and ghosts of toothpaste floating
lonely where your mouth was
when brushing's done.