five year plan

by Steve Calamars

i'm thirty years
old today

ten years from now
kafka was dead

coughing up blood
like sudafed-red
paint-balls

tuberculosis depleted
his lung-tanks and filled
them full of death
like helium

but i don't have
the patience to
wait on tb or ms or
any other disease
or natural cause

i have to much
ambition for my
own good

while others are
busy engineering
careers and constructing
small fortunes

i am hard at work on my
own five year plan

assembling stories and
poems as fast as my brain
can manufacture them

hurling words like
hand-grenades that explode
across the page like
gooey black insect-sobs

and when i have spilled
enough ink and constructed
my own meager fortune from
the meaningless materials of
throw-away jobs and
minimum wage

i'll empty my accounts and
invest in smith-&-wesson

with no need for a 401k
i'll go with a 357

i'll demonstrate my savvy and
opt for hollow-point slugs to
guarantee my success

i'm not delusional enough
to believe i'll ever escape the
shadow of kafka's
giant menacing words

but i have taught myself
to see in the dark

and after i have exploited
what little talent i do have
and my five year plan has
run it's course like any
other fatal disease

i'll know i did something
that not even kafka
could bring himself
to achieve

as the bullet fires
from the barrel like
a baseball
into my skull
tough as a
catcher's mitt