Eric Chaet		TRAFFIC STARTS RUMBLING Traffic starts rumbling outside my window before dawn first a train sounding its horn over & over then trucks hauling dirt from excavations for new houses that no one is going to buy before the developers go broke but you can’t blame them for pushing forward I want to push forward myself I’m restless, tossing, turning, starting to wake against my will they don’t want to hold on to the land & pay taxes on it probably they can’t afford to wait can I afford to stay in bed any longer? I remember I told myself last night to sleep late felt close to exhaustion but there’s a crack in the road’s asphalt & every time a truck that’s emptied its load of dirt goes over that crack, it bounces, & lands with a terrible rattle sometimes I’ve thought Brenda has fallen, or maybe a wall then the cars start rolling by, more & more every year no shortage of jobs right now, wages low relative to cost of health insurance, shelter, education everyone needs money to pay for food & fuel prices have climbed like crazy government’s inflation measure sets aside price of food & fuel I’d like to get up & get going join the guys at the counter of the cafe coffee would cut thru the stray thoughts I’m unlikely to resolve any time soon I usually eat oatmeal, it’s cheap & healthy but eggs would be good hash brown potatoes, sausage, or ham treats you give a dog when you’re training him to fetch strikes hurt giant industrial corporations because the profit is based on continuous production troops broke up the big railroad & steel strikes continuous production requires continuous marketing efforts continuous sales, expanding markets, imperialism when they talk about recession they’re talking about a break in continuous production that profits require not about how hard it will be for you to buy food & fuel anyway, there goes the fuel rumbling outside my window I’m not going to be able to go back to sleep I was reading, last night, about what happened to the Indians & Blacks after the Civil War & how the rights of women, too, were set aside immigrants from east & southern Europe & China lived ugly lives, ugly languages, dangerous ideas there were railroads to be built, national markets, financial deals new technologies, like now, to be mastered greed, yes, but also understandable fear of being left with nothing & Democratic & Republican politicians trying to build & maintain winning coalitions some had altruistic goals according to their understanding but their jobs depended on winning then continuously being reelected as the jobs of the drivers of the cars outside my window depend on continuously showing up for work more machines more toilet paper more everything more people born, making efforts, dying I’ve been continuously making efforts you’ve been continuously making efforts so have the Democrats & Republicans laborers & financiers, teachers & students mothers, infants, doctors, nurses, engineers & lawyers & the 70 million members of the Chinese Communist Party in matching suits (a nice contract for someone who knows someone) & the former members of the Russian spy agency the oil sheikhs, their courtesans & employees & the members of all the American spy agencies those who analyze & those who covertly disrupt & all the soldiers & those who tend credit & debit card scanners, & package purchases I remember how I used to think it so terrible for the best people in Russia & China their hopes & efforts constantly suppressed & obscured by the coercions of rigid, narrow-minded commissars but it’s like that here, now, too & it’s not just the government it’s the people continuously making efforts toward results that are never enough or the intended results who have no patience for anyone talking about letting the traffic go by in the morning & figuring out what else to do all the profit is in continuous production but the lion’s share of the profit goes to someone other than those making the continuous efforts I don’t pretend I know what to do I’m restless because I want to get started it’s not as tho I can afford to lie around with superior thoughts what can I make that I can sell to whom, how? how can I perform?— for the people in the cars & trucks rumbling outside my window continuously doing what they’re doing in Washington, Beijing, & Moscow in every metropolis & every hinterland those who believe they have won or are winning or those who feel that they are living in someone else’s world all of whose ingenuity is engaged in overcoming bitterness, fury, the feeling that effort is useless in making do & being diplomatic with bullies & insane people in positions of authority I try to communicate with those like me restless, but resisting joining the futile & destructive parade but who know that they must somehow enter commerce with those who are doing what they resist doing &, if possible, steer themselves (maybe help others steering themselves, too?) toward a different & better outcome.		CAN'T COUNT ON ANYONE TO HELP ME Can’t count on anyone to help me but myself can’t count on cool posers who gain by being fashionable & popular on the earnest & serious clinging to jobs useful or not that they do well or not not celebrities or manipulators of celebrity pawns not bitter left-behinds or wannabes nor the most self-reliant who mind & patrol their own enterprises, investments, peripheries not rivals I’m aware of or not nor those struggling with rivals of their own not the weak & ineffectual nor those who often get their ways, wise or not not those who value the arts—or deeds!— by consensus of those who judge by consensus nor those who think the arts are for the deluded or deeds only for powerful people, & they’re not powerful not those who know the price of everything, value of nothing not the altruistic nor those who think altruism is for the deluded not the winners, not the losers not those who believe what they’ve been taught about politics nor those campaigning for political advantage nor those who think that politics is just another scam nor those who believe that war is just politics by other means or politics war by other means not those who believe in this or that religion nor those who believe in no religion not those who are hard nor those who are soft not those afraid to commit or committed to any project, team, organization not those who believe in life after death nor those who don’t believe in life after death not those who believe in virtue nor those who think virtue is a joke not those who think they have the securities exchanges figured out nor those who think the securities exchanges are just casinos not those who start rich nor those who start poor not those who start healthy nor those who start sick or disabled not those who seem to navigate some commercial niche confidently nor those who actually navigate some commercial niche confidently not those who command millions of people or billions of dollars nor those who cleverly thrive with resources so few that those who command millions or billions couldn’t survive with so little not those born with useful connections nor those born without useful connections not those who were well advised in their youths nor those who were poorly advised or not advised, even abused not those who fell for indoctrination nor those who saw thru it not those who know my name nor those who aren’t aware I exist not those who think well of me nor those who disrespect me. Can’t count on what I’ve done til now nor on my talents doesn’t matter that everyone’s underestimated me they underestimate approximately everyone they don’t overestimate I’ve underestimated myself most times (unless this is the end) counting on help from others as tho they had more power than I to help me achieve what I tried to achieve & get what I needed to continue always seeking some way to transform what I didn’t want a part in & some way to survive in the meantime without getting trapped in what I aimed to transform. Can’t count on anyone to help me but myself nor make myself impervious, either to help I might induce by my efforts generous help or offered in hopes of mutual advantage even help I don’t earn help I’ll never count on can’t count on anyone to help me but myself.