1 Another One For the GrizzliesTake any street
in any major city
in America
and watch the parade
with homeless
eyes
marching on toward
no destination.
the business suited soles
shiny
and sleek hair parted like the sea
check out the mope of the lonely man
sagging his shoulders to the bank
to sign his unused name on alimony checks
watch the limp
of the handicap
who forgot his own name
once everyone else did
how about the skipping shoes of children
who only know their father
from one orange photograph
and the steadfast prance of the power-walker
racing her way to the cover of Cosmo
the salesman’s grip around his suitcase
within it holding the future of his family
the urgent panicked strut of the
single mother
forgetting that little girl
12 years before
the couples holding each other
as if life, love, and economics
weigh in the strength of their hold
the young girls
insecure looks into store front reflections
in the land obsessed with beauty
the lure of a futureless youth
the grandeur of the full green wallet
the rancor of the poor
the blacks
the latins
the other
foreign enemies plotting their doom
from across cold salty seas
the land where wealth is
a matter of possessions
numbers
of cars
of lovers
of pounds
of erections
of elusive orgasms
of stocks
and bonds
of money making money till
the freezing bitter end
the static white empty vaults
of imagined
additions
building
while we dream
and the others go hungry
all these walkers
in the mad scurry for money
to buy loafers
and labels and
toasters
ipods and flatscreens
running and running
so quick
to forget today
to fuck tomorrow
and then only to find
comfort in the presence
of another runner
to make sure
that the others face is as wet
with sweat and fear
and ones own
to find yet another
partner of the hustle
to find another who’ll go the distance
to scrape a piece
so that they may too
find and
buy a good wholesome death.
Take the time to set apart
and see through the eyes
to see the mad depraved claws
thick in the skin
of our own American hearts.
2 -----------
I refuse to change a sweet word of this stinging
criticism
of our way of life
3 You wanna get physical?
You wanna get mental?
Fucking spasms of feral energy?
Complete abandonment, a shock to the system?
Radioactive isotopes isolating cow droppings?
I'm hands down your best clown on
A gyrating mechanism malfunctioning
spastic tu-tu elephant pink
flesh polyester puffing a blunt
dead man's tales written in blood
but sparks alive the furies compound
sputtering neurons disassociative
self-pity
nimble resourceful
ristorante red and white
origami crane lifts its head
to the cold
to the wind
to lonely insomnia (3 AM laundromat)
to the whipping frustration of leaves
to the sleek harmonics of bus terminals
to the jargon of technological bodies;
my fragile impressionable mind
beating in rhythm with futility and suffering
trailing off trying to tune without listening
unable to comfort
to uplift
to rejoice in this world
I feel too ineffectual and scattered
to endorse as if
still
This beauty I witness is something
I have yet to earn
with no earthly means to measure this debt
trapped by blunted eardrum bursts
of misunderstanding
This is what it is like to be
trapped in an empty house at night
with no dog food.
