why am i fat

poems by Ron Androla

some of these poems have appeared online at the-hold.com

randrola@hotmail.com

2407 raspberry st.

erie, pa 16502

why am i fat

pound & a quarter 75% lean ground beef

ann creates a delicious meat-loaf.

plus mashed potatoes with a few slices

of amerikan cheese swirled within,

plus big caps of mushrooms

out of the oven, buttered.

a feast, i eat

seconds. ann has been asleep

for at least 2 hours,

dropping off when bart phoned.

i have continued

this guzzling

of green bottles.

midnight, my bald-spot

is like a black-hole

of my death: i'll be

ready.

i'm ready.

no i'm not.

that's life in balance,

where we all

must stand,

or fall

off. i think homer

simpson

is an ideal, eternal god of men.

we need it all

based on cartoon humor,

these throes of existential

trapping -- as if

a religion of poetry

isn't funny enough

caricatures

need needed

because

look at any human

look at any human

LOOK AT ANY HUMAN

now minus our limbs

& our mouths & let us

roll along,

all molecule'd, the stars...

now what

i drag the self i sense has a body

from our king-size mattress on the floor

in winter afternoon gloom shadow. i rise,

then can't. left thigh-socket isn't

right, there's pain, ouch, when i press

weight that side. hobble with my left

shoulder along hallway wall

to the nook of a bathroom where i piss

weighed into the right of my side.

think it'll work out,

must have slept on a muscle

of sheet & blanket or something,

it'll work out.

hobble around, get coffee,

check thru blinds at the day.

call doug.

he has to leave with his mother

to get his hair cut. there's a little

tension there, i sense it,

he must want to do

something else, something

is in the air. i don't know

how i survived those last couple

of years with his mother,

bad emotional times.

but survive i have,

albeit with a mysterious pinched nerve.

aches & pains.

rectify what my mind

knows as truth,

as waking

in a dark

afternoon with who & what i am.

memory

i don't remember the colonoscopy,

the actual procedure. i remember

looking at things on the ceiling

in a little room, & when the doctor

says turn onto yr left-side

& i turn

& he begins the new drip

in my i.v., or does he

simply shoot an injection,

i don't know, i'm on my side

with my i.v.'d forearm in the hands

of doctor glennon, he's adding

sedation,

next thing i realize ann is

in the room

& everything is done & over

with,

& we fly upstairs

& in the same bed in the same room

with 3 other old guys

i pass in & out of consciousness

for a while,

then eat a

ham sandwich

then i dress

& walk outside in sunshine

to the parking-garage across

the street where i slide into

the passenger side.

way too high to drive.

make appropriate

cell-phone calls.

i just awoke

at the beginning of this poem

from our

couch. ann has left

to get us

arby's & beer.

colonoscopy?

everybody over 45 shld

get

one.

get

one.

i've been wanting to write this poem since morning

darlin'?

yes dear...

you wanta beer?

aha!

that's how i come

from the shower,

clean &

happier. a beer is perfect.

while standing under

sprays of hot water i think

about work

& the 30 years of work

i've worked in amerika's

factories. i begin to see

a long, high, rusted metal ramp

with levels & levels of steps

up the side of a wooded cliff

to a guard's little shack

where the b & w steel-mill

spreads across plateaus of scrap-metal land.

i am seventeen & it's summer

before i leave for college,

i'm college help, one of several

kids of steel-worker dads,

but i don't know anybody.

it's my first day there.

i've driven the old yellow le mans

to this back entrance

where i ascend with a throng

of thronging men.

fast-forward

30 fucking years of life.

my gray hair, my increasing

baldness -- "the steel-mill

killed my father" is the title

of an old poem of mine.

swing-shift, tons of overtime,

production stress & amerikan

culture circa 1972.

my dad smoking those dog-turd, italian

cigars. i'm seventeen smoking

kent cigarettes. i'm

driving spikes on a sunny morning

with a broken sledge-hammer.

i cannot

imagine

my

future.

a love poem, lover

it seems it's been a long time

i've written you a love poem

altho i can expound i always write love poems

& love poems to you. you're why i write,

why i've written all these decades.

but driving up the hill from the beer store

where i secure a fresh case of rolling rock

from the guy who counts out change like

"nineteen...," i hand over a twenty, & i

WAIT, "twenty," he says reluctantly,

expecting a tip. fuck him.

fuck the steelers. "have a good weekend,"

the beer-man chides.

i'm not watching the super bowl.

our kitchen is stocked

with edibles & drinkables &

both of us are off work

here very soon: you have another

hour & ten minutes to go,

then you'll be sweeping thru the door,

& as you sweep past,

pecking me with a kiss,

i'll hand off a halfback

bottle up the middle, & you run, baby, run!

so jeeping it up the hill

thinking of writing you an over-due

love poem a mere 15 minutes ago,

i have.

let us

drink

& drink

& drink.

not long ago

a few years ago

we did drink with a guys & dolls euphoria of

dance & song & talk,

we did. the world was all pre-september

eleventh, & a smoke supply

pulsed within wonderment, half-gallons

of kessler's, darling, how many

half-gallons we gulp down back then?

crazy middle-aged people early 40's

picking up a relationship from

1975, twenty-some years later,

but middle-aged, broken by life,

betrayed by love -- then karma

comes sucking its own

mandala cock in an infinite

edible blessing of

consumption.

we used to drink all evening into

night & beyond. a few years

& now we might make it

until 10.

there're bottles of cold beer

to guzzle, sweet-heart, let's

guzzle, pass

out in our homer

simpson way of

reality.

we are like aging

incredibly

fast,

quickly!

what fucking

time-warp is

THIS??

you

you sit awake at four thirty in the morning

with only one light on, & the computer. you

are losing yr eyes, things blur, the reading-

glasses half-help, but even now

with yr face in front of this glass screen

crisp focus isn't physically possible & you

simply chance it, typos be damned. this is

poetry, god fucking damn it, not a colonoscopy,

not a last chance at a job,

not a credit-report. you are always

reminding yrself

being a poet isn't being

a normal

human.

you have this

need

you

create

a

circle with words.

calling off work because

i'm trying to fry breaded cod

filets it's 5 in the afternoon

& ann will be unlocking the door any

minute. i flip the two foot-long

filets of seasoned breaded fish in a

pan but they filet apart in like v's of

white flesh darkly skinned by burnt

bread-crumbs. i think my job is a

piece of shit & what i do is beyond

what a man ought to do

to earn a living wage. absurdity

mutates into hatred:

you wanta know what i think about

the international association of

machinists & aerospace workers

union i pay $8.25 a week?

don't goddamn ask. ann brings home

a 12-pack of beer, & i rush out to get us

a second 12-pack, & fuck you,

factory of fools, i call off work,

fuck you, smell of fish fills this apartment &

i'm drunk saying fuck you.

sky-diving at 50

nestled within the tendons of ann's

angel-wings, i've slid onto our bed

after sleeping in the recliner

most of the evening

thinking i can ease right

back to the magic

of one's self

losing one's conscious grip of mind.

i'm almost there, ann is so warm,

so soft, giggles, mmmmmmm's,

in the darkness. but my brain

is a lava-coming volcano, all

inner activity bursts up in forms

of fire & thought & memory. ann will be

46 wednesday.

i say into the skin of ann's back

oh ann dexter soon you'll be

the big five oh!

she mumbles from the other

side of the world,

"that's when i want

to go sky-diving for my birthday."

with a parachute? i ask.

she giggles a little like an

amused cartoon marge

simpson.

i'm

up.

i'm

downing coffee.

ann is

peacefully asleep.

i'm

writing.

i'm

dropping down thru black sky

mist of

cold dew molecules crackling,

my head is a blacken'd

melon

while a reader

is a cement street.

somebody tell us

somebody tell us

where our double-chins

are coming from, our

pot-bellies.

two hundred & nine

pounds,

two hundred & nine pounds,

i have NEVER weighed

two hundred & nine pounds,

but i do. somebody tell us

what to do to get bodies of

teenagers again.

i remember the soft blond hairs

of ann's melon breasts. i remember

her honeydew-flavored nipples.

she must recall my

cock sticking straight up skyward!

we're 30 years from then.

somebody tell us

where to secure

ecstasy.

somebody tell us

we are always beautiful.

kimberly's party at 7 in florida

partly cloudy, middle 60's,

no wind. a new mercedes sports-car,

red ribbons around blue marble pillars

of kimberly's stone mansion. calypso

music inside the rock walls rattle

the windows. we peek thru the glass:

gowns, women are wearing gowns.

men are tuxedo'd, nicely suited.

i have my gray jogging-pants

on & ann is in a see-thru

brown-printed sundress

she's worn since 1975.

we have swallowed

big ecstasy pills,

we are smoking

kind-bud & we are

ready to

party.

*

we have not showered

& we had sex today,

sweat of sex films

our skin. i have chicken

between my teeth

& need an alka-seltzer.

ann's arm-pit

smells like a ripe cantaloupe,

& she's too

drunk to meet people.

the x has got us

way way hot,

we are

panting at kimberly's

ivy-vined

window watching

guests arrive,

served drinks.

look,

chivas by the wooden barrel!

truffles &

caviar!

nudity?

you want nudity?

you think factory poets

have a problem with nudity

high on

x & scotch

in the florida

evening?

*

acuteness of colors

tho edges of things

jiggle, that's my head

shaking, no,

i'm dancing in a crouched position.

i'm thinking voodoo, this

close to haiti,

& losing track how many

fat pink pills of x

we swallow

outside kimberly's

floridian house

handed down

with family money,

lawyers all over,

judges, too.

plus we are very

stoned on kind-bud,

so stoned we

decide to be

creatures of the night

outside & spy

upon kimberly's

party. our faces

are flushed with

vibrations of ecstasy.

we see secret couples

kissing in corners.

ann is sucking me

off but i am emptied

of cum --

she pretends she has

a liquid-filled, droopy lolly-pop

in her mouth.

we peer upon

lesbian lawyers

fingering each

other up under

black skirts.

we watch two old

men kiss,

dentureless.

soon it seems everyone

at kimberly's party

is experiencing various

sexual encounters.

men are seed-pods

bursting milky

seed. the girls

are wet & sticky

with semen,

but they giggle,

they all giggle.

eating soup

ann made soup.

man she makes good soup.

dracula

is on the amerikan movie

channel,

the one with winona ryder.

i am going to eat soup

& watch dracula.

ann is already

asleep.

beautiful day

it is ok for old people, & old poets at that,

to admit they slammed back 16-ouncer cans of

beer with a box of chicken, i mean they drank

80 ounces of beer each

& pigged an 8-piece box of chicken

& it wasn't even evening-time.

it was 5 o'clock.

they passed out.

her snoring on the couch woke him

on the recliner with a sore neck

at 11 at night.

they went to bed

& her snoring

wakes him

early, 6-ish.

dust of snow overnight.

everything outside looks

iced, & morning is gray.

what won't happen

stolen nuclear devices & secret

launch capabilities on any day at

any hour are always possible scenarios

negating a simple broken index finger,

say, or too much fat in one's diet.

jesus god what goes thru us,

our worm self thru tunnels of hours

we chomp away at present air

(talk). i am certain our species

is doomed to extinction.

we are little bubble-dream pods ascending

physical arc of firework

star,

of arcane light falling yellowing from green.

it is horrible to assert such certainty

to our character &

intelligence. our blindness

& our slowness

& our clan-like

realities are

human vulnerabilities

to staying alive

on the surface

of a spinning,

rotating planet in the milky

way galaxy.

let gravity

magically relax

for fifteen minutes...

slice-like cracks of beer-can tabs

as if we ease

air out of

a chipmunk

ripping off its

little head

blood-bubble carbonation

gulp it

chin-risen

howl motherfucker

this is another howl

pile of dead

headless empty chipmunk

pelts

i want blood

darkness

fire

you

easter

ascension, there's a concept for you, we rise

from stone dead body. we ascend like a

ghost caravan to god. we attend meetings,

we make mental blue-prints

as our angel-wings involuntarily

flap. we stand on floors of clouds,

mirages, hallucinations, wisps

half-human, half-mist, all

illusion.

we can move a twenty-ton rock,

dig a trench, let the boulder roll,

fill the trench back in & call it an

ancient miracle. it's easy enough.

human minds believe a number of

illusions are real reality.

but at least we all ascend.

we attend meetings

& brainstorm. time lasts

by moments, not

centuries. jesus is dead.

eat an easter rabbit.

opening day

opening day of trout it's black

outside, dripping rain. birds are

still singing, warbling around

sounds of pre-dawn wetness. it's

58 degrees, foggy, early april.

i'm back about 5 years ago

& doug's leading me over dangerous

arrays of boulders down by greengarden

park -- a little creek runs thru it.

we follow the water under bridges,

we ascend & climb guard-rails,

cross a highway, carrying our poles

& supplies. we pass other

people also climbing over rocks

& things with their fishing-gear.

it's happening right now,

i'm sure of it,

even in this light, steady rain.

this photograph

first, look, it's a bare

bleached walrus belly

& i'm chewing on chocolate

pop-tarts, frosted, sprinkled

with sugar. smart.

i have seven bottom teeth left.

so i'm fat,

bare-chested, chewing on a dark

brown pop-tart. ann is in the shower,

no, the shower has just stopped.

irish spring soap.

plus my eternal old spice.

plus sandalwood incense

i lit while shitting upon

the dawn water of

awakening. plus a very burnt odor

of something very burnt

when last night the place

filled with smoke

from our toaster-oven:

ann was cooking us

buns,

but in her meditation

of prone-ness she

fell

asleep -- i'm here typing

away

with 6 dough buns on fire

in our toaster oven

in the kitchen.

well,

this morning we made long love,

we look, & feel,

satisfied, but puffy-eyed.

ann's wet hair

tickles my ear

as we press

side by side

smiling here

for you.

what i mean

sub-real, an under-ocean

current,

jupiter's knot of stormy

orange eye.

intention. filling intention

with bunches of fruit.

appropriate green apples.

bizarre blue pears.

banana of liposuction yummy as buttermilk.

belly bulges like a weighted

hula-hoop of gray, hair-fleck'd

lard around the

center of me.

twice they've had

probes up my asshole,

viewing those wet wrappings

of pink intestine.

it's all about death, about dying,

& about loving. it's

about paradox

& wrong answers. so wrong,

blatantly

wrong. i see a star

in the sky.

i am the only man

rooted right here

who sees a star in the sky.

a very far star, its faintness

requires hallucination to focus.

there it is again.

a pulse of light, a beacon

set at one blink

once every day. my name.

i feel ridiculous

to have a name.

maybe you do too.

there isn't me,

there isn't you.

sunday morning blues

we have a thin, blue-yellow box of fish-

sticks in the freezer, & not much else.

we've bought single rolls of toilet-paper

these past 2 weeks

as things run out & tho we can afford

to shop, we don't, we hold off, we

work hard, stay exhausted, find excuses

not to venture within quality market

pushing a big silver cart.

yes, we're a little eccentric, ok,

it's true. soon we'll emerge

from our red jeep on a rainy april

sunday morning, waddling thru

the supermarket's puddled parkinglot,

grabbing two carts,

& it's ann to the right side of the store,

me far left,

& we more or less

need everything.

outside our door

there we are

outside our apartment door

with my key on my thousands-of-keys

keychain aiming for

the golden knob

in one hand

in my other hand i hold

a bag from burger king

& under that arm

a 12-pack of rolling

rock cans. ann has

her purse, a bag from country fair store.

it's 7:30 in the sunny,

chilly, early may evening

& after we are secure

in this tiny womb of rooms

we eat a week's worth of saturated fat

& get moderately drunk

"this IS a little

strange for old people

to be doing,"

i announce.

"i'm not the one

eating the double whopper

with cheese,"

ann corrects

me.

sheepish me.

almost 48

gobbling on a double

whopper with cheese

with my bottom dentures in,

gulping

grog.

but it's

so delicious.

so

delicious.