Daydream While Standing in Line at Starbucks Blues

The trouble
with complaining
about overpopulation
is the failure to admit
your own existence
is part of the problem

We who are so intimately
attuned to the primacy of words
may be falsely misled
by the callousness of those
who are not, since they are
distracted by the looming
or evading orb of dark before them,
and, lacking more time, are merely
enforcing their seasons of regret
upon us; see and being, darkness,
no light, except for the kind
that appears with heavy, closed,
lidded eyes, searching for the one
true source of the sun, finding none

Oh, sorry, didn't want cream,

and I don't need to suck on a straw

for that

Dinner Time at the Deluge

She looks out the window
while doing the dishes
Through curtains purchased at Walmart
Through a window during the shifting seasons
of spring and fall she can look across the great corn fields
of  southeast Iowa and view the funnel clouds
moving in from the west
Through to creatures great and small,
as well as straight toward a field,
across the wide driveway,
covered in dented, smashed-in, rusting,
demolition derby vehicles,
without tires, up in blocks, or, on their sides,
the prized possessions of the experienced, the unafraid
Gear head men
with minds for growing maize and working the system,
Martian farmers and their silos that moan
and wail on into the day and night,
their great insect-like machines
mulching and churning and harvesting the land,
From any direction is nothing but cornfields for fifty miles
And up that driveway, a kind of truck stop for the locals,
since she makes breakfast
for banana bunches of the good ol boys every day
She's still got her figure, you know. In fact, she's pretty fine.
With long brown farm girl hair a bit shreddy
from ceaseless moving
for a couple of decades now,
since the kids were born.
Just as the hammer
is pounding red steak chops,
tenderizing it.
There she is, looking out that window,
noticing a raven on top of the little house on the prairie,
Okay, Okay, it's just a barnominium:
She'll never get the word
that her neighbor's daughter died
in the opiod epidemic
after a bitter cold night
walking the street
in West Virginia

Death of a Newspaperman

Dream of dying at the desk,
after a couple of decades
of walking out for a cig
as the main form
of exercise

Dream of winning the Pulitzer
due to the accident of history
of being at the wrong place
at the right time

Death of Ben Bradley
hard boiled but suave,
better as Jason Robards
than Tom Hanks,
long in the tooth
for the truth,
yelling from the elevator,
"Get it right!"

Dead while typing a word,
head dropping on the keyboard,
responding to a thank you note,
that rare thud of recognition

Fired up by Lou Grant
and the Pentagon Papers,
the thought of making a difference
in need of nicotine, ink stained
into delusion by the deadline

Born to be the private I
in the public eye,
slouching into the grocery store
for a freeze-dried pizza,
pressured by money mad spouses
to go into public relations

The spinning around of coworkers,
moved on to puzzle piece places,
chasing the fantasy, used like fuel,
used like verbs carefully considered,
spit out nouns sticking on the concrete

Friend of cops and criminals,
a lifetime of naked fearlessness,
with an ear to the ground
worried into a cadaver
over concerns it rang real

Channeled into a narrow closet,
in the White House briefing room
listening to a huckabilly
yawl denunciations and falsehoods,
mostly for cable teevee

The reporter died here
in the desert of the destitute,
during the electronic swarm
of hive bees and mad bloggers

Woodstein and Orwell and Animal
and Sally Field and rushing
to the office for the single fact
that makes it all worthwhile

Ghosted into a low groaning hum
like a coal miner or puppeteer,
the obituary was quite kind,
the mundane tick of the clock
is what he survived

Guess I Missed the Political Shows (For Chuck Todd)

Sick morning birds in the Sonoran Sunrise

during the Sunday dawning season of the tweets

in anticipation of the endless end of the world

that begins tomorrow consistently amplified

by the bats and thirsty ants disturbed by daily radar,

by the Green Belt ducks by the pool sipping on chlorine

Back East the ice is softened, the ground is soaked,

as the talking heads put on their pancake batter,

try to memorize talking points on single sheets,

pouring sugar and syrup

down blue and red breasted throats

while the birds of this southwestern city

chirp in the symphony of monkeys

falling from the sky

and mating season

is thrown off the rails

in the human quake

Morning now and they are loud

coast to coast, harmonizing, slow roasted,

in the cacophony of disconcertment

and the polar shift of wind

sucks the sweat of all labors

into the air and drops it down from a cloud

on the Kansan plain, shredding a trailer park

as the insurance agents turn off their phones

and wounded sailors sigh at the sound of basketball

The canopy of trees we seldom look up to see

The aviary of green leaves, thick trunks,

grown around the walls, despite the apartment complexities,

as suburban Thoreau picks on orange from a front yard,

wondering how long it takes the peel to decompose

if dropped for the next sixty years of ever cracking sidewalk

And the tweet goes on as the coffee dreams us awake

And the eyeliner girls doze in weekend hangovers

And the casino lights have all gone cold

And the lonely lost shepherds chase their scattered sheep

And the personal items, lost lighters, broken bracelets

are discovered by the sunrise, as the day's new wheels

grind the leftovers into a glittering of everlasting dust

They are on now, the clattering news champions

but the coo of the white owl in the trees,

the panic in the swirling electronic hive,

is a found then lost in a transcendent moment of rest

Soon enough we wonder how will we fill our day,

will our shopping carts be filled in the land of plenty,

with plastic bottles destined to float in the sea

on an island the size of Texas, but now, just now,

the dot of love is connecting to the eternal line,

the spring is working overtime

The rumor is the raspberry has no soul

The rumor is mankind only knows heaven

Yet precarious life up and down the food chain

knows nothing more than the dome of God

fading blue to whitewash, then back into stars,

and that is more than enough from the beginning

to the end of the next night, when the chorus of conceit

blows on smoking wings to pat down the dumpster fire

we like to call Monday, as the highway roar rises

stirring the dirt into the dumb light

~ Scottsdale, Arizona

Please Write Us a Greed Poem

Suds in the spotty water
painting the sea with pee
Moby Dick chunking out the air drain
Melville stolen blubber beast into fiction
then oil was discovered underground
Whale ships became museums, so did we

Dissolve the fat in smoothie drinks
the sugar is the antidote the past
the dream is the screenplay
but what the fuck is the third act
Can't write the word "penis" but there it is
the womb always runs toward the money

Can't fault the soccer mommy
for escaping into the security state
Her secret is back there, at the pawn shop,
in rows of red, white and blue guitars
Living on the edge of Brit TV detective
amusements upon the intimacy of strangulation

Poor Laws re-enacted, the "Lion King" redacted
The guns of London and the industrial revolution
She cradles us in liberty as the lathe cuts and runs
Genocide fences for the hunt, the machine hums,
trickling up the U.S. Stock exchange, tisk tisking
the rising crime rate on the smart phone, ringing

Revolution, evolution, auto-tuned into resistance
Who would ever risk losing the anti-tax clicks
when somewhere in the dark, baby kicks,
behind the wooden door without a nob
Teilhard de Chardin is knocking from the Noosphere
in the white blanks enveloping what we call poetry

The Eponymous Economist (for Paul Ryan)

Might as well call it a day

as in punt

run to the sidelines

Got a place to hide

eat the cheese

There's always the Packers

The horse has left the barn

None of the mavericky said nay

Why should I?

Marx was right

but his followers had guns

Engels is left but Stalin blocked the sun

They are clapping at the end of the day

at the American stock exchange

because a stately mansion

in the remote Rocky mountains

sold for millions and billions

of barrels of red ink

Currents of rust

rivulets of plastic

a trickle down economics

runs to the ocean

but sinks in the sand

in the Rio Grande

Deregulation is a vial

in the Book of Revelations

Only thing you need

are fewer words

to resonate the dumbing down

The lord laughs with the rich

which is why it's okay

For the esteemed Senator from Oklahoma

to look away from the homeless man

sleeping by the stairs at Washington Square

as the limousine passed on by

Look away

Look away

The land of cotton

Look away

No land left to give away

Property is theft is superior violence

We can get fries with that

but your going to have to pay

out of pocket for your heart attack

Don't answer the phone

It's only a robo call

The Gipper is clutching a mean memo

from David Stockman

who reinvented

English Poor Laws

So Tiny Tim

can't get ruby red slippers

Pawning his crutches will pay for a forced drug test

The player piano has gone out of tune

Money is a green cloud

passing over the head

of Milton Friedman

paid in cash by artificial intelligence

beaming a bribe passed

beneath an Italian mob marble table

passing through the sky

a digital sea of endless greed

Who the fuck is Dickens?

Ayn and Benito and Adolf

retrofit the classics

for planet tipped over

by a zillion brain dead end jobs

building a white yacht

for Noah at the nosh

roasting endangered species

instead of a safety net

for the looming flood

of Koch addict funds

When it all comes crashing

I told you so

will be a good

presidential

campaign

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