the arms of a woman
is the closest
to Heaven

so I brought my writer wife
(prominently pregnant)
to the hospital
and on her bed, she screamed:
"weren't" "hasn't" "couldn't" "shan't"
"aint" "hadn't" "you're" "isn't"
"aren't" "didn't" "wasn't"
"who's?" "what's?" "he's" "she's"

The doctors were confounded
and they turned to me and they said:
"What the hell is she doing?"

And I replied with double speed
and a violent sense of urgency:
*"Don't you know?
She's having contractions -
she's a writer"

Clouds shift across rearview windows
Of ten million untouched cars.
Hesitant steps over uneven asphalt,
And the deep drone of interstate
Spanning the continent.

Dilapidated city centers,
Abandoned buildings and frayed neighborhoods
With all those chemicals still inside,
So birth defects are on the rise:
Another casualty of industry.

While there's shiny new shoes,
Couture wardrobe and golden rings
With a wood floor in the renovated loft,
And a computer that knows your face.
This view of the city is nothing new,
Though the price says otherwise.

Rain sweeps carcasses off oil black streets.
Excrement piles in the gutters.
Billboards like clawing monoliths.
The senseless beat of trekking tire,
And a really ******* big American flag.

Endless parking lots,
Suburban sprawl,
Incandescent spires,
Nonchalant death,
Distant eyes,
Mass demise,
Corporate ties,
Institutionalized,
No integrity,
No empathy:
A quiet suicide.

And the bell rang, the time of closing
of the nine doors of entrances,
he is glad,he did read much, experienced
imbibed, felt elated,embraced effulgence
but the unmitigated sadness is unforgiving
the heart, heavy; a feeling too painful to take home.
"I haven't invented even one word
as my firm claim to immortality,
words I 've only seen, read and heard"

As he quietly lays waiting, these words
rush to mind,"A solitary pilgrim  am I,
a song sung when an audience was all ears, applauded
beginning from a thought, I am left behind as one,
the rest from dust goes to dust.Finis."