Dismantling the Beached Cadillac

All the parts add up
like names you can’t remember
the world as such laid out before me
here to read through with prescription
binoculors & a crescent wrench
as I would compile secret inventories
minus any lyric disclaimer
with a Fuck Death harpoon tag
relegated Torch Ballads, Tambourine Blues,
Saxophone Flashbacks & Mariachi Breakdowns,
Scenes of Life at the Capital by Philip Whalen,
The Pleasures & Pains of Opium / De Quincey,
Call Me Ishmael by Chas. Olson,
random scrap manuscriptos de Opstedal,
a pencil, a dirty ragged wedge of Sex Wax
wrapped in plastic,
threatening letters, a bottle of pills,
a harmonica, an out-of-date tide chart,
a small stack of postcards I never sent
& an empty Tecate can that you’ll hear humming
softly to itself when it’s quiet enough