I quit fifty years before technician must change window extra
Mud on the radio at casino I found when lady luck took a bath in red
I had never plunged so deep to pay for drinks at poolside
Lights where pals are rich with lingo becomes you
I can't hear Grandma while the band plays Titanic nostalgia
"Film at Four" showing material gathered for burning witch I love too
much
Body in back from 1961, in black and white letters sent from prison
to escape life staring at a blank screen
I'm certain no one would guess the source of profound shift that
didn't have a single friend
Failed artist took the blame for surface on surface treatment from
Duchamp scumble in the desert in a camper watching classic view of
Monument Valley in Technicolor in 1956.
Fastforward to all the young dudes that carry the news in a
wheelbarrow filled with devalued creative juice
Like man named Jack went up up, got the shaft and came out the
other side of you know what
Issued barrage of comments and worked on manifesto, but only after
the kids are in bed
Slept with a flashlight in case of lucid dreams in which I was always
a cat burglar
My partner in crime was a rock star in his waking life, pushed by a
punk label to display the effects of alcohol intake
From the same country, across the big pond, with wind that blows all
flags to bits
"We are here as on a darkling plain" The time machine will take us
back to Dover Beach
Matthew Arnold is on Facebook. He has one entry in "Friend Activity"
The entry puts me in mind of P.T. Barnum, who didn't say "there's a
sucker born every minute"
Actions speak louder than words, but not for the failed poet. All he
can do is friend the failed artist. They'll meet up at Deux Magots, and
then head over to Lipp. Drop names all the way home
Come back to earth in the morning. Breathe fresh air that works like
the best placebo available, until something better kicks in.
I'm a bad boy but can't help it: My father named me after a
philosopher he had never read.
Coined the phrase "survival of the fittest" Came to America to visit
Andrew Carnegie. Was appalled by what he saw.
Exactly one block from the house I lived in while in grade school was
the public library–one of 2500 built with Carnegie grant money
between 1883 and 1921. "Carnegie libraries were important because
they had open stacks which encouraged people to browse... People
could choose for themselves what books they wanted to read"
As one night gets longer and longer, I find myself wandering through
the main corridor, musing on shovel brought to victim of servitude
covered with an unknown volume of dirt.
Do you see what I mean? Do you get my drift? Better make your own
or pretend it's winter and the snow is three feet deep. School is
canceled so it's fun all day! Watch cartoons, read comics and play
play play! Learn what's important but don't tell anyone, including
yourself, until it's too late.
The nuclear family was everything while we waited for a nuclear
winter that never came.
Boundaries are everywhere, some more solid, some more fluid, some
based on a bluff made before poker was invented.
War rages across the globe of tranquil innocence. Spin the globe with
your left hand and stop it with your right index finger on a country
you will visit on the brink of another life.
Survival was always assured but only because we didn't know it.
Imagining bad scenarios was necessary to bring in money, to fuel the
need for endless consumption that is so American and the flip side of
a record that plays 24/7 and denies our fascination with projected
guilt.
The story could have been different. The story can always be
different. I enjoy stories that are different.
Hear my plea in a vacuum that picks up microscopic particles
undermining the public order.
This is where we came in. The failed artist on the run hides out in a
moviehouse. When the flashback ends, the theater turns into a shop
selling cheap reproductions of the way things were when everything
was beautiful in its own way.
I make an appointment to meet in the steam room. Sweat pours off
my body and into the drain in the floor, that is on the wrong side of
the room. On the other side it's a lake filled with all the friends I used
to have.
A woman I don't recognize says, "If you were my friend, I'd make it
worth your while" I accept the offer and receive 1000 brand new
words.
I'm dancing on American Bandstand with a girl that has no face. She
asks for a light and I change the channel to Sea Hunt. Mike Nelson is
trapped in a cave and running out of air. I catch my breath and the
room goes up in a fireball that is seen for miles and miles and miles.
"Pack you bags for nowhere at all" Nowhere is anywhere, anywhere is
everywhere, before time and space close in, and you take the big fall
Awakens in an unfamiliar chamber with an illustrated copy of Moby
Dick. In this version, the symbolism doesn't count. At least not until
I choke on a foreign object that makes me spit out the best part.
She was getting screwed by bosses. She set them against each other,
but only in a dream. The dream comes true when she realizes it isn't
sexual, or political either. Everyone says she is wrong and in denial.
Everyone but the man who promised to be true but isn't real.
Has a dog named Karma that she hauls around but always leaves
in the car. The dog never barks and seems to have infinite patience.
My karma is like that too, mainly because I don't own a car or have a
dog. Plus, I do the barking myself.
