everything's** swaying, the illusion once familiar, metamorphosis only beginning, melting, sanity fading, colors unfamiliar I've never seen those before, melting water collecting in a pool of dust how long have I been deceived? this is the point where I stop believing in anything I see, what is will be as is will be, as it was before it will soon conceive carry on, talk about the passion, regale the masses with confession, carrying your beat up copy of Infinite Jest like it was the last bible in the mission, you are no genius caring too much for the approval of the indifferent this will be the last time, you gave yourself away

The trash men carry it off
Barrels of garbage, the waste of the week
Rotting, molding apple core
Worthless reams of sales circular
Advertising *******no one needs
Books of tame philosophy
Books of lame poetry
Covered in half-burnt grease
Sophisticated scumbag
**** of the earth
Hauled to Gehenna
Where the dead litter mounds of refuse
Reduced to ashes in perpetual fire
Kept burning by priests who can keep a secret
Dustbins overflowing with trash
All that is ruined
By use or lies
Disappointed
Naive I suppose to believe
There was a garden
But now it's a dump
And there you are swimming in the middle
With a blissful smile on your face
Misunderstanding
Everyone is gone
They are never coming back
You will never see them again
The breast stroke is the best
You've got a long way to swim
From this wretched refuse reality
To your under-populated heaven
I would loan you my life jacket
But you've already stolen it
What, did you leave it at home now you need it?
Sink then
Never stop smiling

They are building
wielding hammers, driving spikes
brick by brick. precious mortar and pestle
Babelesque they build it
a spire points to Sol, blinding eye of the gods
to breathe spirits into lifeless bodies
They are reaching
so much further than they dreamed imaginable
masterwork of skill, a testament to pure science
In defiance they shout
Psalms of caterpillars
chants of butterflies
They are ascending
laughing at gravity, how it surrenders
beneath their naked feet
They are serious this time
the new tower
the Internet

Joy so constant we took it for granted
plugging jukeboxes with quarters
loading those noisy machines with B-sides
that only we had ever heard

Van Morrison's "Blue Money" bounced the skip
from station to station in the AM static
we loved that doowit dooey doop, doot door dooey doot, do doot
but the mystic sang of sweet things on the other side

"Saturday Nights Alright For Fighting ", tough ol' Elton John
worth a quarter to hear that song
flip that ***** get your money's worth
two songs there for the price of one

The Stones rocked "Brown Sugar" like slavers in heat
too young I was to understand
why the controversy, so many offended
I rarely chose it, though, cuz I loved "Sway"

"Sweet Hitch Hiker", CCR
sounded more like a razor than a tuned up car
do you remember "Door to Door"?
didn't think you would

"Children's Heritage" over "D.O.A."
"Generation Landslide" over "Hello Hooray"
"For Emily Whenever I May Find Her" over "Bridge Over Troubled Water"
yes, even

B-sides whenever possible
because the A-sides were all on the radio
why feed money to the jukebox for a song you can hear for free?
such are the economics and logic of the 10 year old music aficionado

2001: The Trump lobotomy partially successful
the Successful partial lobotomy performed on
Donald Trump was increasingly expensive
as complications were disregarded
He could have woken up with a Messiah complex
But a stray clot attached to the memluk
as a result he was unable to speak the truth
forever trying to make people believe his lies
"Liar Liar Pants on Fire" he bought a LOT of pants in the years after the chisel
Trump would meditate and contemplate
his singular black hole fate
so pathetic
it turned him
it turned him bad
it turned him into a bully
it made him hateful and unafraid to call wicked names
so many people hate the crooked one
what love they have left is for the liar
the one who doesn't know how to laugh
they'll give it to the man with the lobotomy
they'll give it to Donald Trump

i.

Wicked elixirs gush forth to the north
the force of the earth pulls like rain drops
down south without doubt into your greedy mouth
your greedy, needy mouth

ii.

I'm the least materialistic person you'll ever meet
but you steal from me
I will cut you off
cut     you    off

iii.

The sad background music
she is crying, inconsolable
does not draw out any more sympathy
silence an echo chamber, effect achieved

iv.

If I were not doing this
my eyes would be closed
merging with a gas planet
collecting alien frequencies

v.

Five
Fold
Path
Diversion

She sings, unites beautiful melody with a naturally melodious language
The end result being how I don't have a clue what she's saying
chanting the mantra given to her
by the bearded sage in the terry cloth bathrobe
who told her "your mind is a vast field where elephants gather to play"
before conferring the mantra

She lets the Sanskrit words roll over her tongue
a vernacular of formidable power
effecting even those who don't speak a word
such was I, Sanskrit illiterate, but the repetition
opened the lotus flower of my heart
the baby blue visage of Sri Krishna materialized
from the words she was singing

I took away his flute and blew a line from an old Jethro Tull song
she thought it enchanting
but Krishna was not happy to see his vaunted woodwind in the hands of a mere mortal
he stepped up to me, polite as can be
he says "if you don't give me my instrument I will be forced to cut off your hands, and then what do you think will happen to this poem?"

I stood my ground, possession being two thirds of the law
I blew the flute solo from Genesis' "The Musical Box" (having known it by heart)
the blue boy asked several times for me to
give him that almighty flute
each time I told him "No! You'll have it soon enough"
apparently not soon enough

(For he felt a pair of garden shears slice firmly through his right hand
the same set of shears severed his left
he dropped his stylus and papyrus to the ground
toppled over, landing smashly with a great crash
within a matter of time he bled out from the stumps where his hands had once been attached

Krishna picked up his flute and said
"what a pity"
and vanished into thin air
it all ended quickly as it had begun
and the sweet lady never stopped chanting her mantra
in fact her back had been turned before Krishna even showed up
it was a great shock to find her gentleman friend's lifeless and handless body on the ground

She shed a tear
I was no less miserable and sad
wished above all else
that I had been a real poet
so I could have finished the man's life work)