ANTI-SOCIAL

is
what
the last woman
I lived with called
me.

you're
so anti-social
she said with hands on hips
pissed because I would not take
her out
to

restaurants
films
theaters
operas
art museums
or concerts.

all you do
is sit there in front
of that goddamn
computer.

it is true
all I ever do is
sit before this goddamn
computer.

as a kid
when computers
were the size of ice cream trucks
I'd sit in my bedroom with the door closed
reading books
drawing pictures
or staring
at cracks in the walls.

outside
beyond the walls
my brother and his friends would be
playing football in
the yard.

they would
play out there until the sun went down
and my father would scream
for my brother
to get his ass in the house.

my grandfather would say
that kid doesn't have enough sense
to come in out of the rain.

as for me
he thought I was weird.

he thought
I was homosexual
because I read books all the time
and did not play
contact sports with
other boys.

for
some reason
I thought books were less homosexual
than contact sports.

grandfather
would say other things
like children should be seen
and not heard.

or waste not want not.

a penny saved is a penny earned

etcetera.

now
some forty years later
I remain anti-social
although I prefer
to call it

asocial

meaning
I am not against humans per se
would just rather
avoid them.

everything
I want to do is on this computer
and now I am with a woman
who feels pretty much
the same way.

right now as I write this
she is behind me on her computer.

a
minute ago
she came over and kissed me
on the cheek.

she does not say
in a booming condemnatory voice

all you do is sit before that goddamn computer.

no doubt
my grandfather would say
if he were
still alive

you are two peas in a pod.

---

GET OUT OF THE APARTMENT

is
what I tell myself.
I am not the kind to suffer
from
cabin fever.

like an
astronaut I am able
to remain in small confined places
for long periods of time. that's how mammals
survived with dinosaurs pounding around
able to survive
in small cracks and burrows
only to come out at night
and munch on the remains left behind
by pea-brained Iguanodons. it must be genetic
or something. even so I tell myself
get the hell out
of the
apartment

go for a walk
do something
go outside

and look
at the mountains.
so that's what I do
I get up and walk outside and stand in the courtyard.
I stand there for a minute
hear reverberating mariachi music from the apartment
across the way. the sky is a dull lead color
not all sunny and cheerful like you see
in postcards.

walk
around I say
get some exercise
before your legs
atrophy
and they must be
amputated
in some expensive
five hour
operation.

so I walk
over to the street
and stand there glaring at cars moving past.
an old man
in a dented white car with hair sticking up at odd angles
looks at me there with my arms crossed
in my red sweat pants
blue t-shirt
and black and white checkered flannel shirt
wearing leather sandals and
white socks.

surely
I must look
like a
dork

but at least
I don't have any hair
and if I did it would not be sticking up at weird angles
as I drive past
going who the hell knows where.

walk down
to the park get some exercise
is what my mammal brain commands.
the park is about three hundred yards due east.

naw

one
part of
my mammalian brain
scoffs at the
other.

go
back
inside the apartment
and see if you
have any email or
if anybody has posted
on the
boards.

another
car drives past
Monte Vista apartments
where we live.
this one
is commanded
by a very determined woman.
she is hunched over the wheel as if
forward motion alone
will get her to where she is going
a few nanoseconds sooner. people are everywhere
and they are in a hurry to arrive nowhere
so they can turn around
and leave.

there are
television programs
to watch and
inexpensive food to eat
and things
to buy
and consume.
so I turn
around
and walk back
toward
the
apartment.

I am
a mammal
in search of a tiny crack
where I can hide until the sun
disappears. I walk at about 18.5 miles per second
considering how fast the earth tumbles through space.
inside the apartment
with the door closed and the mundane outside world behind me
I discover there is no email and nobody has posted
on the boards. I sit my ass on the chair like some
large sulphur-bottom whale
and stare at the

dull flickering computer screen.



---

OLD IN AMERICA

spelled
with a c instead of a k.

amerika
lower case a
lower case k

no
longer
has any
relevance.

televised
masses do not
know

Kafka wanted
his collected writings
burned
in a coffee can
out back
in gas lantern streets
of dismal
Prague

upper case P
lower case q.

colorized
in betrayal by
Max Brod.

it's
a bitch
to be
old in
America.

there is
mockery

in gum disease

sore bones
failing memory
gastro-
intestinal
orchestrations.

preparation H

lower
case p
upper
case H

is
foreground
relevance.

old in America
no bank account

no credit
bifocals
dentures tangled
vertebra
sacrum and ilium
and articulation or associated
ligaments.

grocery store
magazines
herald youth

sexual vibratiuncle
supple second and third generation skin

words
I do not understand
without
prescription glasses.

old in America

capital A
lower case c

the
promised land
is a gated community
cops with guns
greasy opposable thumbs
on triggers.

we are invisible
we shall be regretted
and herded

institutional green walls
stewed prunes
mashed potatoes
marathon re-
runs of the mod squad

lower case m
and likewise s.

Kafka
knew
his

words
and
worth

twenty
five pounds
of perishable paper
ready for
a wooden

kitchen match.

betrayed
in death by a lesser

the
stony road to heaven
is
irreparably
clogged
with

insomniacs
astigmatic librarians
butchers in blood spattered smocks
gleaming presidential candidates
news anchors
and thirteen year old
whores.

Judas Iscariot
knew
his tree

very well.



---

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     Kurt Nimmo lives in Las Cruces, New Mexico, with poet Elaine Thomas. His fiction, poetry, reviews, and other assorted writings have appeared in the small press over the last three decades. In addition, he is a musician and photographer. poetry and images by elaine thomas and kurt nimmo. A selection of his photographs can be viewed at Passion 4 Art.

UNEMPLOYMENT DAYS  poems by Kurt Nimmo.

'Some Room in an Unspecified City'
'fetal position'
poetry/elaine thomas -Kurt Nimmo music accompaniment

Absolute Arts