Thursday, April 5, 2007

You're Just In Time

All day, sounds from the White City’s streets litter spring scenes
like gum stains stuck to sidewalks during black paved dreams.
Never to be wakened.

Never to be disturbed unless on the off chance that their concrete roots are relieved
of their imprisonment and molded back into the safe molten surface
from whence they initially came.

Trains billow by the street like a jet’s sonic boom circa 1948.
Nuclear weapon drills mean kids under seats.
“Duck and cover” translates to the image of “dust all over.”

Because that’s all there is going to be.
Nice new sneakers?
Dust all over.

Nice Christmas sweater?
Dust all over.
Picture postcard from across the sea?

Duck and cover.
Phone message from a loved one in a dire time of need,
dust all over.

Garbage trucks and sixteen wheelers are 21st century tombs.
Embalmed in filth by means of crisply baked bones.
Contents speckled white,

left to sparkle like a diamond setting foot
on an ancient Cambodian clay-
more mines.

Discontent, Winter 2005

With every comfort
you re-evaluate what
you deserve and what
you're paid and with this pay
you buy what
you want and leave what
you need to everyone who owes
you.

Sideways glances,
you're so calm and unimpressed.
I'd like every sarcastic fuck
and every unflattering sunset back
and I want you on the next train out of this town
so I don't have to tell you I've lied all along
and you don't have to tell me what more you want
and how hard your life is without it.

This middle-ground,
it's littered with misunderstanding
and all I need right now
is to be sure of something.