DAN PROVOST

The Workers at the Crematory



The face cinders…


Followed by body parts—fingers, feet, legs.


Jeff was cremated last week in the Crematory of the Simple.


Another job for those guys…stiffs burn…load up the next,
Bring on the Monster Girl into the fold—she had nothing, and
the guy who had the tattoos on his neck…


put him into the flame too…
He and she are nobody but ashes on the floor.


Another paycheck for the fire grinders.


And more to do tomorrow…
So many more to do tomorrow…






Pavlov’s Dog in the 2000’s



You can never do truly what you want…


The responsibility of the Rip-Tide machine has
us all programmed.
Like mice who travel in groups
of two—living only to be eaten by the cat.


We talk about weekend rambling and vacation
madness while drudgery highlights our wakeup scamper.


Shave, apply makeup…then trudge to some shindig of a game.

We never step back and ask:


Who are we?
Who are you?
What is out there?


The belabored sinner.
The corporate antenna.
The real Pavlov’s Dog.








Confession of Soul (or lack thereof)




There is something out there…
I do not know what it is, all I
know that it’s out of my grasp.


Sometimes, I can feel it near
my fingertips…it is then I
am closer to reaching some
sort of peace…a vision of
serenity for not only me…


but those who inhabit this little gauntlet we usually fail to notice daily…


Then, it disappears…leaving in a dusty trail of a soulless arena…not to be found anywhere…


I try to find it in bars, books, or just staring out the window at the end of my earth.


But it fails to come back…


Sometimes for many months, or just one day…
I come so near…but I always fail in obtaining this item I cannot describe.


It leaves a trail of many tears and bloody nights that I have lived through…
And the answer that sometimes appears…and raises its beautiful yet dangerous spirit.


Always finds a way to avoid me in the end…