we will be given arrows

we have grown old.

yesterday we had water.

today, we drink whiskey

and talk of capitalism,

social politics, and the common man.

yesterday, we were

the bottom rung

of a step stool that

never hurt anyone.

tomorrow, we will be

shakers of mountains,

movers of the earth,

at the helm

of a terrible machine we

once were only

a cog inside.

we will be given arrows

backed by guarded gold

and where we choose

to fling them will

tell us just what kind of

men we are.

we have been given the keys

to this city we live in,

babylon of the earth,

and oh Lord let us not

open with them

pandora's box.

arachnids of progress

they're out there, on the horizon,

arachnids of progress sticking their

straight spindly mile-long

metal legs right down into the ocean floor.

off the easy shaded coast of

carpinteria, santa barbera, they sit

poised and sucking the crude lifeblood

of our economy from far beneath

the whelming flood.

right here, in front of children

skipping through the wake in may's new breeze

and couples cradling each other

fully clothed in the sand

and people who would have been called dreamers

forty years ago left scribbling on

scraps of paper, alone by life's gracious,

graceful hand.

there they are, toiling away grey

hours of daylight all in a row -

one two three four five six seven

frozen steel insects forged

by greed, necessity, and surely

very calloused hands.

they light at night, several globes per platform

in the distance warning us

in a way quite opposite of lighthouses,

"don't venture out to sea, we're

here. you needn't be, and we'll

be just fine

without you."

falling asleep this
night in a ceremony

shirt and cut off shorts

the graduate's on television tonight

the graduate's on television tonight

and i don't care. i'm sick of it,

tired of romance that looks how

people want it to look.

good God i was mucked down

in that bog for too long.

about twenty years too long

to be honest.

the graduate's on television tonight

and it's reminding me how stupid

i used to be. stupid enough to make

choices for all the wrong reasons.

good God i was stupid,

stupid and mean.

the graduate's on television tonight

and i don't want your company, dustin.

not tonight. because tonight i feel

like just another notch

on a gun somewhere

north of here, just another name

on a what's-getting-long list.

good God i was a hard fought notch

and a name written in calligraphy

on that list.

the graduate's on television tonight

and for once in a long while, i feel

like dreaming myself to drinky sleep.

good God, save me from me.

that one

i wrote alot of things

about that one.

beautiful things and heartsick

things and hopeful things

and horrible things too.

some were okay but most

weren't okay in any way but

they're all still here, laying

around like a bunch of old

dive suits lined up side by side

in a navy warehouse - the kind with

the big round bronze helmets

and tubes that go up to

the surface for air and

monstrous boots for trodding

around ocean floors and

sunk submarines and the like

but unlike that congregation of

ghastly obsolete apparatuses,

those things i wrote aren't worth

the ink i spent on them

now.

i guess it's time to start over,

again.

black friday

i had the nicest time

dancing with a girl

through panic on the streets of london

and panic on the streets of birmingham

and panic at our nation's finest

retailers of electronics and expensive

things on sale.

hands hooked together, smiling,

we stepped and bobbed and

sang along,

apathetic to the media material madness

of the day.

on the stage, the man with the fade

and the coke-bottle glasses in front

of a table full of wires and cords

wagged his finger at the crowd,

singing along to his own death threat

hang the dj

hang the dj

hang the dj

and we danced through black friday

into no-one-cares-about-this saturday

and eventually left the sweaty

echo park bar and went home,

i would say, absolutely and utterly

content.

recollecting

december

i was much younger then, around

the time of my nineteenth birthday,

standing outside in december,

rain-wrapped limbs holding a cell phone

up to my drenched ear shrouded

by shaggy wet hair, a beard, and

scuba goggles on top of the

whole mess, (i just like the rain is

all.) talking about tea and the

times we agreed to talk - daily -

over the coming month and some

hours added to that. and i was

much younger then. she was hazel

and frail and we were both just a

little insane. leave it like it's

burning you and she did, come the

new year. january. a hollow

month. the next several were forced,

pained to wade through the days -

we did though, muddle our

way around until the

end. and no more rain came.

i was home then, working

out of doors with gloves on.

december, forever.

eh

not a latte

sometimes it bothers me

when i look around

and plastic people are

paying more for

their coffee drinks

than i can afford to

shell out for

one meal in

a given day.

best just to be

thankful though,

that i can at least

pay for a meal.

nothing sacred

shiny tiles

i was at

an art school

walking down the

windowy halls on

shiny tiles

and there were

flyers posted all over

the walls and

some even on

the windows

and one of these

flyers, amid computers

for sale and

missing cell phones

and offers to score

your independent film,

read

(let me turn this

over one second)

"meditation

(once more)

mondays, 5:15 pm,

5 dollars"

now,

millions of people

have been practicing

the spiritual-or-pagan

discipline of

meditation

for thousands and

thousands of

weather bruised

years

absolutely and utterly

free

of charge

and i just don't

see what gives whoever

posted this pretentious

and profane

invitation to what

i'm sure would and will

amount to spiritual

abandonment and

enlightenment (for some)

of course

the divine-or-godless right

to charge the

ungodly sum of

five dollars

merely to take part in

this ancient

rite.

it confused me

for as much time

as it took

to tear it off

the wall and

write this poem

on the back of it.