What Subaltern Think When They Do Not Speak

(With apologies to Gayatri Spivac):-)

she says i think so much 



     like an oldman who has lived through life 

     thoughts envelop my brain like a condom 

and  stop  me   from      just        feeling, 
being        primitive 

i went to the store to buy feelings
they were having a sale and were all out
except for panic, so i bought a dozen
but now at home i wonder if the shopgirl
fleeced me, is p   a   n    i   c    a feeling?

(but you know i can still feel) kidnap you
in the morning, roll you up in a be
dsheet
drive you to the lake and show you sunrise
and laugh and just be good
if you let me

and let it all spill out

do you think the subalterns think of
     funny things like did derrida pork
     his favorite graduate student from Cool-AM-bia
stripped her of her skeleton
     and deconstruct it in his head?
     or if germaine greer and simone de beauvoir
     shaved their privates and kept their armpit
     hair for show? there i go thinking again
     may be edward said had funny bedroom habits
     or gramsci jerked off too much in his cell

             (i will stay away from the living legends
             know too much about them, like
             who is porking which graduate student
             so we will just read their great thoughts
             and bore you to death)

if i were a porn star, people will
     pay to watch me fuck
or if i was a cook or a movie star
     i can let it all out and be good
but i get paid to think
     silly thoughts in big words

(once flying a plane over oxnard
tim taught me how to cut my engine and glide)

so that is what i do - what i do is think - about silly things - i think silly thoughts - and about big things - i think silly thoughts - and use big words - so i can earn a paycheck
and my mommy can tell her sisters
that her son is “doing so well”
even though what he “does so well”
is such a mistery

(on thursday in new york
at the intersection of 43rd and lexington
i will stop and watch
the stores to see if i can get happiness on sale
may be go to coney island
and be a kid, but the rides are rusting
and people are losing limbs)

there i go thinking again
     you are an old man, she said
     always thinking
     but what to do babe
who will clean up the spill

when the brain condom comes off?
    
what is an old man to do

other than write poems