some visions are pedestrian
workaday
bring them home for night time consumption
then out with the fishbones
but you
you're a memory i'll stick under the tree
unwrap at christmas

alienation isn’t profound
it’s the nation we live in
but my alienation is epic
i’m alienated from the hepcats in this dive
the ladies who ignore me
the god who hides from me
the cops on the street
the politicians who “represent” me
the managers who “manage” me
the hicks i work with
the patients i work for
myself for eating meat
the motivation that abandoned me
the technology that sidetracks me
the music i’m commanded to enjoy
certainly the dart players
the capitalists, the communists
the smokers, the foodies
the carpenters, plumbers, electricians
rats, tigers, lions
the trolls who hate anyone who does anything
i do love cats and dogs
alcohol agrees with me
i’m popular with bartenders
i dig commercials
and the people who read these poems
thanks for listening
sorry

you gotta win once in a while
it’s nice to get what you want
but going further
if a train never reaches its destination
the oil dries up, the engine slips, gears grind
fellow trains break down in despair
the destination turns a cold eye
you are stuck

first a blizzard of embarrassment

i went to a party in my guitar student’s apartment
she planned to debut her new guitar-picking
which was cool, friends make a sympathetic audience
what i didn’t know and she didn’t know
was that these were not her friends
it wasn’t her party, it was her roommates’ party
and when she turned down the hip-hop and started singing peter paul & mary
the guests were WHAT THE ****?

normally i could roll with this but i’d just smoked a blizzard of ****
and was stupefied through the cornball song and hostile reaction
she wouldn’t stop leaving on a jet plane
and her stiff strumming was like a bucket of glue poured on me
who’d been introduced to the party as her brilliant guitar teacher
so much for recruiting new students at $20 a lesson

i was further stupefied by a coven of new arrivals
outside it was snowing, a blizzard, but these four girls were in halter tops
i was lost in a broad panorama, ******* all around
stunning ***-smoking showcase ****, taking huge breaths
i toked just to hang out, which painted me especially purple
after a happy half hour i realized, being a married man
it wasn’t time to make friends, it was time to go
so i exited the party and dug out my car
the snow was smooth, untrammeled
i turned on the radio, the grateful dead—
PERFECT

i ignited my sled and slid out, streets clear thanks to the blizzard
but half a block from the house i picked up a police car
following 15 feet behind me all the way across town
i was drunk, ****** & stupefied
and we were alone in the city, no distractions
the blizzard was wicked, the snow as intense as a plague
that’s how we rolled, and it felt like the cops tailed me
all the way down from the arctic circle

boring, useless and impossible
i understand why these are not the first listings
in the job description
but they should be somewhere on the page

my god, the love for billy joel here
it’s touching
"is it billy joel night?"
"yes!"
"is every night billy joel night?"
"yes!"

our better natures have much to contend with

we want the chinese to be slaves in factories
so we can buy our crap for cheap
we want fracking to poison neighborhoods
so we can heat our homes on a budget
we want to torture cows and poultry
for a chicken *** pie and a roast beef sandwich
we want the suckers in the middle east
to knock each other off with their bonkers belief systems
(*** slaves are kosher) so they leave us the **** alone
we want the old to be sick and the young to be broke
so we feel like we’re sitting pretty

this is what we want
this is why we’re so happy