Vic Chesnutt

Vesuvius

Vic Chesnutt


Trying to clip the creek 
To the bank with a clothes pin
Waterlogged system 
Rusty spring
Faulty planning

Logic squeezed out like mustard at a corndog
Hypertension is not wisdom
Chewing the leather straps

Trying to hold the sun 
Still with a bobby pin
Burned fingers 
Excellent conductor of heat

Private fantasies are not public policy
Christian charity is a doily over my death boner
Busy work is not the Great Wall of China
Vanity bamboo hut out back behind the big house
Pretend is salve for whitey-boy guilt

Furiously slapping at 
The moon (the moon)
With a cane pole

Trying to prop up 
The heavens 
With a fresh flat pencil
Some folks are allergic to rubber

I am trying to stitch this one to all the rest of them
But the seams will split
Collide and cleave
Neopolitan ice cream is never truly integrated 
Until it's too late

Trying to stop the bleeding 
With scotch tape
Platelets spoil adhesion
Fire up the cauterizing iron
It's a branding of necessity 
Not scarification

Bliss was a pimple that I tried to pop
It erupted up and out on my countenance
Ugly eruption, Vesuvius
Ugly eruption, Vesuvius
Ugly eruption, Vesuvius
Vesuvius at myself
Vesuvius at myself