What have I done?
what's happening to me?
Am I diseased with
the sickness that's infiltrating
the whole nation

A nation of pill popping zombies
that has addicted itself
to the loophole
of "a pill for happiness"
"a pill for desensitization"
"a pill for nerves"
"a pill for life"?

Why have we become a generation of junkies
whose drug is legal
inflicted on us
but degree holding powers
because "they know better"?

Is it normal for humans like me and you
who feel
who see
who taste
who hear
who smell
to be controlled by a singular button
to be confined to a manifesto
of the "latest trend"

Are we all hypnotized
into morphing into the
"perfect body"
"10 ways to get smarter"
"look like this, don't eat"
is it a blueprint set by a superpower
to transform us to identical robots
to make it easier to control us?

Are we slowly walking down the path
of being identical?
Are we losing the only essence of what makes us human?
Are removing our imperfections
and surgically implanting
"my lips should be like this"
"my thigh gap is a must"
"my brain should have a set of guidelines"

What has become of us?
I pity the fish that
flow with the current
I cry over the youth today
I mourn the artists
of yesteryears
I grieve with the widowers
of lost souls

There's still hope
or so I try to believe
and encourage
the dying breed
of
perfectionists
the humble ones
those whose kisses only
land on lips
and not
*****

Floating on a stream of delicate warm milk
I gather handfuls of froth udders tepid silk.

Chilled hands collect warmth on a cold night,
Fulfilled memories of past moments do ensue.  

Each one descends into foamy warm truth
I pick out the choc chips going down smooth.

wind is coming in
sun is just showing
horses are watered
fire is glowing

movement is starting
the camp is awake
cookie is working
there's breakfast to make

no fancy croissants
or drinks laced with toffee
this is good solid food
and strong cowboy coffee

it gets it's job done
it ain't always so nice
later on in the day
it gets served by the slice

mud, java, joe
it's got lots of names
and at each cowboy camp
it still tastes the same

grounds at the bottom
thick as coal tar
without cowboy coffee
you will not go far

eggs, beans and bacon
and bread texas thick
to wipe up what's left
and get every lick

here out on the trail
you won't find any toffee
we eat solid grub
and we drink cowboy coffee

If you read this you're out of luck (Loser)

I want to be your chocolate chips.
Frankly, you are the cookie.
You are plain and sweet,
Perfect really.
You accept any topping or ingredient.
She is a box of raisins.
You two could mix
Be a great team
But she doesn't make you pop.
She can't accentuate your true sweetness
Your beautiful simplicity
Your strength. I want to be your chocolate chips
I want to go through the fire with you
Melt into you
Like she never could.
And I want to make you shine
Because the sweetness in me might just bring out the perfection in you.
So I guess what I am trying to say
Is that if you want to have raisins
I could have that cookie too
But I'm really craving chocolate chip.

Gemini sheriff of happy town
kills all the frequent cow-catching waffle machines.
He rounds up all his cowboys
and retires all the shepherds in a cloud most curious.
Somewhere soon there will be a better thing to do
than reach for the cookie jar all life long.
Unfortunately there will come so many who also wear the star.
All them good folks are stuck in a stampeding herd of confusion.

“An old love will come back to you,”
said my fortune on the table,
but does my fortune cookie know
that I’m emotionally unstable?

“Learn Chinese- Expensive.”
that’s the word my cookie taught
but does my fortune cookie know
I had to sell all I had bought?

“Lucky number 41”
the first number that was listed
the exact amount left in my wallet
now isn’t that twisted?

“Lucky number 5”
the number of deaths I faced,
does my fortune cookie know
they’ll never be erased?

“Lucky number 12”
the 12th glass I am drinking,
does my fortune cookie know
the drunk thoughts I am thinking?

“An old love will come back to you,”
that’s what my fortune said,
but does my fortune cookie know
my only love is dead?

I have eaten
raw cookie
dough
that was in the freezer

and which
you were probably
saving for a party

Forgive me
it was scrumptious
so sweet
and so cold

Fill your heart, fill it as full as you can.
Fill it with memories most warmly hued
and remember them well
in all their glorious, sweaty,
kindly brutal
minutiae.

Remember each drop,
each bite,
each individual dust
mote dancing
the still, hot, sunlit
February
Thursday.
Remember how different
places all have their own
unique elusive
smell and how
it is impossible to describe this to anyone
who has never lived
anywhere else.

Fill your heart with all those memories
of the best kind
of home grown hell.

Fill it until its tears are forced out.
Fill it against the long, cold dark of parking lost.
Fill it against mysterious hate.
Fill it against misery and mud and hard
frozen
bottle
glass
lies.

Fill it so full it can't ever sink far down.
Burden it with buoyant stories
and weigh it with
hypnotic winter flame.
These are the things of which
the cold terror to
victory apocalyptic will be born.
There are no second prizes here.

Fill it with the certainty of the worn places
where the chairs met
the table
each night.

Fill it with the truth of
the gnarled and sun-warm roots and
the indisputability of a Beetle motor accelerating and
the violent pirouette of each spring
and the ozone smell and
the way wet wood screams at the sky and
the way the sound
hits all ears the same
regardless of
their color or
what side of Line Avenue they’re from.

Remember what line you’re from
and to hell with the rest.
You must mind your own.
There’ll be water
if God wills it.

You are never too far lost if you still know
your father’s face and can still remember
getting milk from the tubes
in the
silver metal cooler
and the red cookie jar
lid as the
adults smoked at the green kids’ table
and everyone mostly had blue eyes
and red hair and there was always a phantom killer
lurking  
right beyond the only hope door
before you were ****** into the mirror
world and
*******, but
kids sure do have to make some
rough choices
before nine o’clock.

Keep remembering and when you remember,
remember even deeper
remember in yet greater detail and
practice that remembering until
you
ARE
the dust motes
the milk tube
Thursday
roots
sun
until you ARE each drop of sweat
until you ARE the phantom killer
and the red cookie jar lid
the straight line of smoke rising out
of the ashtray and
the motor and the
scream and the
ears and
you ARE all these things
and you ARE
and you can’t really say where these things begin or where
you end because you’re not sure that
anything really does end or
begin
anymore.

Beginnings and endings
haven’t much meaning after
everyone has
shown their cards and the worn places on the chairs have
met the table
one
last
time.