INITIATIVE, RESPONSIBLITY, DISCIPLINE, AND OTHER CUMBERSOME THINGS

Bless this radiator that it may sing always,
bless this dog that it may howl always. Someone
please slide past in a whale-bone sled and bless
these people for their filed-down skeletons.
Bless them for their cold sores and their gray hairs.
Someone please bless these ears that they might not explode.
Someone please catch up their ankle in the leathers
of a galloping pig and bless these hills for their cattle
and pea gravel. Bless them for their tailings, their alluvial fans,
their scrub oak and limekilns as the pig drags you past.
Hung alongside sacks of rice under a helicopter, please swing over
these hands and bless them for their tingling fingertips.
I would do all of this myself, but anymore
the only time I leave the house
is to go out and buy something.

Bless this day for tomorrow, bless tomorrow for me,
and bless the next day that the plates might shift
to warm the springs hot. Bless yesterday that it
may be remembered, and please bless the fish that
they may be kept free from lice. Someone please be swallowed
by an owl, and as the owl flies silently over me asleep
in a ditch, bless these teeth that they might not fall out
all at once in a dream. In the ditch bile leaks out from me
green and blue and onto the grass of the ditch banks.
It seems as though spring may be soon coming.
Please bless these feet that they may walk away.
Like I said, I would do all of this myself,
but it seems no one is filling out the necessary paperwork.
More and more people everyday are giving up
on paperwork and turning to subsistance farming
for support. We all have planter boxes sprouting
sweet potatoes and almond trees, so we all should be fine.