collecting the mail
collecting the mail
after being gone two weeks in europe
and my mind is sullied
i don’t know what it is
maybe being gone for so long
i expected something different coming back
but it’s the same ugly faces
doing the same ugly things
and nothing will change any of us
the woman behind me
in the postal line is angry
about her kids running around
or no longer being young and beautiful
about it being a saturday
and she’s stuck in a post office line
with ugly people
living dull and ugly lives
she keeps ringing the service buzzer
even though the clerk is off getting my mail
presses and presses the bell
like its personally offended her
i turn and say, look, lady…
but she’s not having any of me today
so we stand there
and she rings the buzzer
ring!
ring!
ring!
and i think about how europe is over-rated
the postal clerk comes back
with my mail
she throws it at me
because she thinks i’m the one
whose been making all of the noise with the buzzer
explaining myself isn’t worth the words
so i take the bundle
off to sift through
while the lady behind me
begins to yell at the postal clerk
about a lost package
or the fact that there is no god
there is nothing in my mail of any value
just fliers for politicians i won’t vote for
ads for plays and symphonies i won’t see
a package of worthless coupons
a wedding announcement for someone i don’t even know
and a book by a young, hip poet
that i’ll take home and toss with the others
never to read
unless i find
i’m bored out of my mind one day
and thinking about the king of england
just ain’t doing it
for me.
the politicians at the street festival
sit
in booths
between fried oreo stands
bounce houses
and people selling plastic figurines
they sit and smile
and are impervious to sun and rain
to the ten bands on the street
all playing shitty beatles covers at once
they look like
they’re made of wax
dumb smiles all around
that one is pro-choice
that one is pro-life
this one has a banner
that says love is love is love
but doesn’t really say anything at all
they sit there
at their cluttered tables
with flags and stacks of papers before them
the politicians at the street festival
papers full of all of the items
they stand for or are against
more trees have died for their nonsense
than one could hazard to count
and they would be
the biggest idiots here
if it weren’t for all of the people walking around
eating hot dogs
and fried dough
all of the clueless citizens who voted
these grinning hucksters into office
in the first
goddamned place.
capitalism will kill us all
we burn teachers in effigy
while revering false populists and rapist athletes
as golden gods on the mount
burn ourselves out into oblivion
for someone else’s wealthy stake
as the kids marching to school in death masks
breathing in the infected air
are tasked with repeating the cycle
past the honking cars
of the tired and angry peasants
who came before them
simple fools
with angry mouths and quaking chins
trapped inside a madness
that we were all born into
left with nothing
but tv shows and a timely death
as our only escape.
talk to the plants
the brunch faces
have me down
i can’t understand
the way they can smile and hiss
over orange juice and champagne
i am hungover and hungry
i have walked these blocks
longer than some of them
have been alive
and have nothing to show for it
but piles of paper
full of silly words
i tried to become some thing
but something always held me back
or the gods just said
kid, we simply don’t need you
to perfect the art of nothing
is to perfect the art of man
or some bullshit like that
but the brunch faces
they don’t understand
they laugh and laugh
and eat their runny eggs
order more orange juice and champagne
as if the world doesn’t
have them clamped down too
i can’t stand them
i’ve written enough about them
and there is nothing left to do now
but get off of these streets
go home
stare at the wall
as the sun fades on another stupid
wasted day
that desires me to talk to no one
in this world
but the plants.
making art during the fall of democracy
dead in the water nation
seventy-seven-degree morning
up before five a.m.
collecting the gnats
that have gathered
in the dirt ring in the shower
as the wars rage on
as women lose their rights
as government comes for the queer community
these theocratic proto-fascist
christian taliban zombies
slobbering on their social media bully pulpits
as the supreme court
scorches the earth
while the geriatric president stands there
scratching his senile balls
talking about nothing but the economy
as gas prices burn suburbia
into budding fascism
and the plague plays on and on and on
as july shows its ugly face
and every true blood
sticks an american flag up their tight asses
calling it democracy
i stare at another massacre of words
on the computer screen
thinking this is good
or not nearly good enough
i guess.
