got my tent in the back of the car
driving to my campsite
out of the city, into the country
and though the election is long gone
it’s TRUMP billboards, lawn signs
TRUMP splashed on the sides of barns
with the occasional **** BIDEN
thrown in as punctuation
these folks must be so happy
they won
america’s great again
then i see a billboard about guns
STORE IT SAFE
PREVENT SUICIDE
but i thought their dreams came true

i lived with laurie anderson’s keyboard player
back when you heard of laurie anderson
i think the woman’s name was lucky
just roommates, no romance
we shared a loft in times square
that year in new york we were all musicians
but lucky was a star in her own right
"at my level, you don’t have to audition," she said
"oh yeah?" i said
"at my level i don’t give a ****"
we weren’t the hanging-out kind of roommies

the hospital whiteboard
for the 21-year-old patient
has some sunny goals
"spend time with family"
"happy 4th of July"
upbeat aspirations
for a kid heading to the OR
to get sliced and diced
for ***** donation

as hard-hearted "pragmatism"
becomes the norm--
and it has--
our congenial presuppositions
about how we want to live
are taking a beating
but on his way to mars
elon musk clarified the moment:
"the fundamental weakness
of western civilization
is empathy"
ok, there it is
no more mr. nice guy
**** everybody

i had it wrong
about those MAGA enthusiasts
they were here all along
hunting buffalo and living in teepees
their ancestors didn't come to this land
looking for a better life
BUT
if they had been immigrants
great-great granny and gramps
were ****** murderous ****
who should've been rounded up
and herded into south american torture prisons

as all consciousness
is filtered and corrupted
through online interaction
my poems taped to lamp posts
in the real world
may come to be seen
as humanity's redemption

call me al
algorithm