American city, your roads make me gasp,
Hold my breath with cancerous anxiety.

Your sidewalks,
Ancient ruins of time passed: A failed optimism for Utopian desire:
A house, a yard, a car for every person.

Now derelict, termite infested, but rented.
Chlorinated chemical water runs through rusted, moldy spickets to
Rinse pesticide seasoned vegetables.
And yet they remain so tasteless.

But who cares?
Suburban middle class zombies?
Created with media placed propaganda.
Born and inoculated with DisneypepsiMccocacola ideologies.

Oh Wal-Mart,
how we love your homogenized Chinese products.
Oh America,
how we love your multi-million dollar cathartic films,
They bring my mind to no place and inspire nothing.

Your theme park inspired retail caters to any identity I desire:
I am a professional,
My wallet lined with the best credit cards,
SUV, Hummer, Super boat, designer label, mall bought,
bleached teeth smile, with slick greasy hair style.

I'm cool, I pay for the gas.
Beep your horn, and rev your engine.
We are at war with each other.
Everyone get out of my way: road rage lifestyle: compete or die.

Big screen television dream.
Bought it at Target.

Open my cupboard: Macaroni and Cheese, delicious.
Ambian, Prozac, antibiotic, Listerine.

Collagen bovine beauty:
Manicure, pedicure, dye and wax

Acrylic nails, hair extensions
And silicone sacs.

Oh, American city
How we want to steal your money and **** your blood.
Chop your trees and cement your grass.
American city you are dead.

We sang: retro post-modern.
With tattoos of Lynard Skynard
And boats sailing
At high mast.

Mediocrity accepted as norm.

We came rarely,
For legal reasons.

Religion stained our blood,
And our *****.
With pine smoke fragrance.

Laughter,
Few and like
Stucco condos-

Birds whispered secrets to life
As we murdered each other with silence.

Sun rise:
Gleamed positivity with
Bling chains of Christ.

We danced while naked and alone,
Another legality-

And culture was processed in the blender of commerce-
Black and white word puzzles plagued our lethargic minds.
From triviality—
Transience.

Photography,
Photo journalistic,
Everyday, realistic.

Commercial, architecture, landscape, artistic,
Industrial, fashion, ethnographic, pornographic.

Big Brother, fallace, stealer of souls, vouyer.
News seller, instant gratifier, man pleaser, woman abuser.

Barthes, Sontag, Cindy Sherman,
Virginia Woolf, Warhol. Weegie, Francesca Woodman,
Leibovitz, Adams, Arbus, Tina Modotti,
Nan, Evans, Hoffer and even the Paparazzi.

Cheap *****, digital manipulator, image poser,
Center fold, coupons, Jackie O and Marilyn Monroe.
Where did they go:

Lifeless paper product, painter's picture mess,
C-type, digital archival,
Sepia, black and white, hard drive retrival.

Image addict,
Image taker,
Image maker,
image seller,
image buyer.

Newspaper, magazine, graphics and ads,
TV, dreams, even the trash.

Billboards, subways, phones and buses:

Utopia:
Surreal, crop, stretched and air brushes.

Modern ideal.
Surface manipulator.
Brain conditioner.
Consent manufacturer.

Oh Photography,
I got you in my eye.
A few thousand dollars,
A BFA, A critical scholar.

Or maybe a nerd,
Just boys with toys.
Telephoto genitals, with motor drive action.
Studio lights, umbrella traction.

Oh Photography,
You proprietor of obscene.
Detailed, de-sensitized.
Court ordered, jury analyzed.

Click, image, copy, edit, paste, print or post.
Myfacespace, twitter, flicker,
An internet media overdose.

Pry, spy, your friend's friend's acquaintances.
Parties, picnics, reunions and shows.
Visits, vacation, style, shoes and clothes.


Pics, photos, images, jpegs and giffs.
Snap shot, portrait, panoramic, Kodak kiss.

Exacerbate:
Divorce, break-ups, jealousy, envy, love and fears.
Devour and captivate society for years.

Slaves to Western and Capitalist desires,
Destruction of Earth with psychological, monetary empires.

Fought
One, Twenty-two skidoo.
Cantankerous mad filamous

She,
That of her,
Me.

Piñata, stretched balloon
Over my big fleshy
******.

Tea and cakes,
Painted my nails
Painted my lips
Like candy.

Gold trinkets,
Pour like mercury out of my ear.

Ouch! I cried
My feet in hot sandy
Dreams.

Flying peacocks tickle
My *****.

Oranges roll on chalk board tables
Over stale rye bread.

***** dribbles out like mucus
And a runny nose.

Toilet paper and rusty water.
******* on you.

Stocking lover.

Fetish cover.

Woman pusher.

Mellifluous ****.

Look at my skin.
Pink, beige, peach, red
Porous, greasy, bacteria ridden hide.

**** me like seppuku,
Smother, suffocate me with
Red jelly jam.

Lubricate your finger with black
Cancerous ash.

Stick it in my naval,
Unravel my umbilical cord
Like so many filaments of my heart.

Tear your flesh
You auto *******.
Rip your liver

And force feed it
Corn and maize
Hay and grass

Emory my nails against
Red barn walls
Until bare skin fundamentals

Kisses with salty lips
Inflame my ravishing
Pig stomach.

Kick my shin you
Everything,

Wake up you stupid
*****.

Void can be blue skies,
Oceans call for suicide.

Kiss me with delight,
Raspberries tattooed
In my *****.

Strawberry cream
Vanilla, milk,
Ponderous infinity,

Cotton, dough
Honey and sage.

Caustic gastric
You and not me.

Feel my legs,
Touch my thighs,
Lick my lips,
Give me anything
Not direct.

Tie me up in complexities.
**** my head up.
Put me in a dream,
Make me happy.

Blair Butterfield 2004