Cool kid euphoria with our pastel colored pants and our Raybans on is what we all are in the basement of the 50’s house.
Our phones blowing up while we sip whiskey and wine.
Trying to get the attention of the cars on the main road
By handstanding and flashing and cheersing our beers
And we receive our victorious honks.

Guitar clock radio with numbers around the fretboard and Sir Paul smiling and crooked, acid-trippin’ guitarist/violinist/celloist looking product of orange and gold look down upon as our patron saints.
Swingin’ low, Sweet Chariot words stares up at me from the 70’s floral carpet.
Ralph Stanley and Eric Clapton singing solos and duets in my head keep me company as the boys play and figure out key changes.

Painted screen hiding the Etta James microphone stands forgotten in the corner—
As I take in the teals and roses and golds.
Give me a heart shaped box where I can store my love
I fly so high in the world above
I’ll come back down eventually.

Lava lamped water stain engulfs the ceiling. As fingers go up frets
And they go down frets
And they go up frets
And they go down frets.
As you don’t enunciate when you sing.
We all mourn  our fallen brethren, the base of the telecaster with no strings and no head and it weeps silently from its place on the water pipes, hearing his cousins WAAAIIIIILLLLLL.

As Cool kid euphoria is created with our pastel colored pants and our Raybans on in the basement of the 50’s house.

We work all day so we can drink all night
Getting high off the drug that is each other
Chain-smoking Pall Malls like it’s our job
Listening to oldies as we shoot the eight ball in the corner pocket.
Garden tools and Lawn Mower parts as a sweet, creepy décor in the dank basement
As we breathe in mold and dust and cigarette smoke.

We are gloriously young.
So *******.
We still think we can change the world.
Not through politics or through fear or by means of war
But by doing just enough to get by and loving everybody for who they are, even the parts or religions or particular ways of life we don’t like,
Because people aren’t what they do or what they believe
They’re who they are.
We still think we can change the world
And Maybe one day, we will

But for now
We’ll just be here,
In the basement of the 50’s house with our pastel colored pants and our Raybans on.

taking place at bar after rare occurrence of
an early night. ordered a single whisky and tall beer.
the drunkard opposite found agreement in the random
statements i interjected between him and blonde bartender.
cheaesing his Miller to my whiskey because of false-statement
passed through these winter-warped lips. cheersing, to words
that are false belief. if only to retain him to placated  stupor.
opened book of Style, left-to-right this hand underlining sentences
and rectifying the self-criticism ever present. talking louder,
   'i just don't hear as well as i once could.'
he orders another but sends it to vacant chair adjacent mine.
stumbling, moving from his ritual spot. sitting, he claims
his upbringing as Southern Baptist. after i announced the
denomination to my rearing in childhood.
   'you're a christian, good.'    but
i don't have the heart to elaborate upon the crazed and
pantheistic beliefs i hold in truth.
   'you were baptized and saved?'    i lied,
for truth is my soul will burn in hell according to this man's
-- self-proclaimed sinner -- drunkenly spewed theological underst-
atments. his words slur as he falls into elaboration of Bible conspiracies.
adding a few
   '*****'
                      here and there,
and always in concern of his opinion of Muslims -- awkward.
my boss in background chimes; we had a similar conversation
moments before. now my words betray everything stated during
prior moment. i order another beer then excuse myself to ****.

What a place, oh what a place
a place so strange to rest one's face.
Three people parked for the night instead of cars.
No ordinary family should sleep in such a space.

This was normal in our case.
This is what we did.
We'd sojourn from here to there.
Sometimes at a nightly rate,
sometimes with men who bore not my father's face.

I remember one smokey spot
where drunk men found women to chase.
There were rows of open green and sticks and smooth round stones.
Crashing and clinking and cheersing
while whiskey went down at a freakish pace.

A steady stream of Shirley Temple and a roll of quarters could keep me busy for hours.
As long as I didn't sit on the stools
or get too tired you had all the time you could waste.

I had to sleep eventually
so you let me sleep while you went and watched the horses race.
I woke in a teary terror in a silent and empty place.
I dialed my dad, hid under the covers

and grabbed a kitchen knife just in case.
That was the end of our run mommy our time together was done.
You fell ill shortly after all this and  you died in a feverish haste, in a feverish haste.