Bar Code, your perpendicular black nodes
frighten me a bit, as shark fin slits of light
and shadow, and of such variable width,

like Levelor blinds with cord pulled
in spastic fits by an unseen hand,
as if Geometry itself could not
make up its mind
how much daylight
to admit...

Bar Code, with such discomfiture
--much as what Neal Cassady must have felt

in a flash of Mexican heat, at the hour of his death,

counting silhouettes of railroad ties, Bar Code
like Johnny Carson Curtain closing down on T.V.
dinner test pattern, bandolier of bar codes on A & P
Express Lane Conveyor Belt: Chicken In A Bag,
SHOUT! gets the tough stains out…, --

Bar Code you
conjure many things I wish not
to think about—hieroglyph of
countdown markers scratched in jail
cell wall, twelve pack of Duracell keeps
on going and going, Alphabet Soup,
Lucky Charms, plus Scar Guard for
fresh track marks on Popeye forearms,
Astroglide, Halo-Scan, Mrs. Dash, extra-

strength Tide... Paper or plastic, debit,

credit, decide or step aside…

Bar code in my back pocket, embedded
upon little four-square spiral notebook


which I ripped off from Walgreens, oh
how the heat seeking sensors at security
threshold scream and scream, as I’m on the move
again, free to evoke these fast-dash scribble tropes
for the moment, or so it would seem, Bar Code,


go on, snap

those microfiche shutters, click
the infinitesimal pixel slits— I am

ready now, for my close up.