Clothes Make The Man
into something special.
A near-sighted klutz
falls into a closet,
opens his shirt,
and becomes immortal.
An aloof millionaire drenched
in Armani and Maker’s Mark
eschews his fortune
for a grim embittered fury.
But that’s kid stuff,
ten cent pulp fiction,
dodo history.
It won’t help me understand
what I’m trying to do,
swinging between buildings
and cracking jokes
between uppercuts
when I can’t make rent
and all I have in my fridge
is month-old milk.
No one told me
with great power
comes the need to lie
to people I love to protect them
from the nonsense I perpetuate
cavorting with four-colored
lunatics and Raymond Chandler
rewrites.
No one told me
the same brick walls
would come hurtling towards me
every time I tried to do
the right thing.
No one told me
I’d still feel the bite
on the back of my hand
when I try to fall asleep.
This great power
killed my uncle, my parents,
my girlfriend. This great power
allows me to scurry across
walls, hide in alleys, skulk
in the dark like the creeps
I catch, the creeps I work with.
The night is like rain, and
I’m a worm squirming across
the pavement, free to hide
behind this mask
as if it’s only a costume,
as if I’m not really some squat bug
waiting for someone’s foot
to put me down.
*******
But does garish spandex
hide the man from his
own myth, or is the man
the actual mask?
Do their tall tales
and deceits actually
protect them from
—–
Bookworm wallflowers
take to swinging between
buildings like tetherballs.