Super Bowl XLVlll     (48)

 

When the New York/Jersey region

finally had Super Bowl 48 played in 2014

it was a remarkable, unforgettable event.

But not perhaps for the reasons

one might expect.

No one even remembers the final score.

Maybe that was because there wasn’t any.

Fact was the two top teams that

year never even took the field.

What happened instead was

a long lost batch of Alien in laws

showed up on Christmas Day

pissed off and indeed ready

for the big game.

They had their own specific plans for that.

First thing they did

was finish the holocaust

of the 20^th century by

quickly wiping out every

single human being of

Jewish decent with

a blinding flash of light.

Seems one of more prominent aliens

was related to Jesus back in the day

and still held a grudge over the crucifixion.

After some debate the Aliens decided they

might as well do the same exact thing to

all the Christians while they were at it.

It was thought it would be a nice Christmas

present and they would all think it was finally

the Rapture at last.

Next they announced a new date for that year’s Super Bowl.

Was going to be rescheduled for New Years Day

Kick off time would remain the traditional 6 PM

Few changes in the format/line ups however.

This year the 80,000 plus seats would be

populated with every CEO of the worst

most reprehensible corporations on Earth.

All the worst worthless miserable bastards

would be compelled to attend.

It would be mandatory.

Just like the old Night Rallies in the Father Land.

Of course all the Major Media outlets

would be broadcasting

on all frequencies.

If it had a signal on earth.

It would be there.

And you would watch it.

One cherished tradition fell to the wayside however.

No clever 2.6 million per 30 second behavioral suggestions.

This spectacle would be commercial free.

It was announced that this year

that every single Son of a Bitch CEO determined

to be guilty of murdering, polluting, decimating

plundering, exploiting, ravishing and in general

destroying the Aliens garden resort planet

was to be presented at mid-field

and vaporized instantly in a pillar

of fire and plume of smoke to be tinted

in the same exact uniform colors of their

favorite team.

(One of the aliens in charge of

entertainment details thought that was a nice touch

and downright funny.)

The game (if you could call it that)

would last as long as it took to execute

every single “fan” in attendance.

Everyone in attendance was going

to have their ticket punched

till all 80,000+ seats were empty.

(On a side note all the concession stands

would be fully operational and totally free.)

All networks would carry a live feed of the

empty stadium as a closing establishing shoot.

The Post Game Analysis

would be centered around

the game plan for earth

and its’ inhabitants

for the foreseeable future.

As of the Date January 1^st 2014

The global thermostat for the

most populace regions of the planet

was going to be set at 70.

The environment had been cleaned up

and restored to roughly 17^th Century conditions.

All weapons, from hand guns

to nukes no longer worked.

Bye-bye to internal composition engines.

All computer systems were going to

off line for a very, very long time.

As of this moment

all money was worthless

in fact it literally did now

burn a hole in your wallet.

It was combustible.

And then ?

They just got back in their

shinny space ships

(they looked like over sized Ford Escalades)

and left….

without a further word.

Seems that one aged alien aunts

had to pee and she could only

go on Saturn.

Something to do with the rings.

*

*

                                                         From Sometimes Grief-barks up the wrong tree  -2011

*

*

 Orange Crush Bottle in the Snow

 

I’ve got…

used rear struts

and a brand new dueling scar

on my right cheek

There’s this pool of neon

that calls my name

and right after I get those stitches out

I’m going to catch the next train.

O Baby.

I’ve got everything.

I’ve got…..

A knock down dragged out

thirst for Miller High

in tall neck bowling alley bottles.

Going to ride my Camels

off into the emphysema sunset

Put away your badge, son

and your threatening warning label

Gonna ship my skinny ass

off  this virtual Nintendo smegma earth

just as soon as I am able.

Because O Baby.

I’ve just about had it

with everything.

I’ve got….

Students

Inmates

Correctional Officers

Wives

Kids

Lovers

Skeptics

Critics

An Indifferent Audience

Mechanics

Bartenders

old drinking buddies

new drinking buddies

estranged drinking buddies

and dead drinking buddies.

O baby

can I buy you drink ?

I’ve got…

a photographic memory

with an extensive collection of

Incriminating negatives.

I’m a walking base line

Abstract Painting

orally fixated

existential dilemma

I’ve got a face that

that can stop a clock

and a die-hard battery heart

just waiting on your jumper cable.

But don’t you start anything with me

unless you’re ready, willing and able.

O baby

Turn that ignition key.

I’ve got….

Poe

Pollock

Picasso

Charlie Parker

I’ve jumped off that bridge

with Berryman and Kees

Dove in the Outfield

at Shea w/ Swoboda

Spartacus was my baby sitter

in the lodge of the old Prudential Theater.

Music of the spheres plays in my head incessantly

Drive-in movie dreams now showing nightly

Leave your ticket stub and reservations

on the doorstep at my ids door

but I warn you I’ve installed a turnstile

and don’t have keep score anymore.

Because O Baby

I got everything.

Except you.

From Grief Barks…- 2011

 *

*

Kees left in Ignition

In the early evening

of a San Francisco bay

suppertime fog

I can see myself walking

on the bridge and him

silhouetted there ready to jump.

His foot up on the rail.

You would have had to move fast.

because he certainly was going to

……before he lost his nerve.

Perhaps if you had called,

Robinson Don’t!!!!

 

It might have startled him

just for that brief second.

Thrown him off his resolve

to do this thing

to bail

on all the poetry

ignored and unread

or just not written yet.

Abandon

Fats Waller

De Kooning

The Asphalt Jungle

The Narrow Margin.

He’s looking down into the water

smoking a last cigarette I suppose.

The bay breeze upon his face

the smell of salt, somewhere a gull calls

then impulse propelled

him to silently, quickly, simply

climb up and hop of the rail

to drop below into the water

a shadow dart enveloped in gray

and probably be knocked out

instantly by the concussion

of the impact

and drown.

Quickly.

With a decided lack of

theatrics or dramatics.

No one saw anything.

Investors never turned up a body.

It was 1955 and I was just over a month old.

Newly born into his used up world of despair

and disappointment.

I wish he

hadn’t been so quick

to jump the ship

of the flesh

leaving the only door

left open

to conjecture

over a staged suicide

or a vanishing act in Mexico.

Maybe he didn’t

really leave the engine running

and the keys left

swinging in the ignition

of the 54 Plymouth

on the approach to the Golden Gate

shrouded in the July Fog as

night fell like the closing scene

in a RKO Mystery movie

as the Detective writes

in his notebook…

…But why did victim

make that last payment on the

car a week before ?   

*

From Grief Barks…..2011

*

*

Poet Down !

 

Did you see that ?

That guy over there

on the next block was striding

down the sidewalk with

all the purpose in the world

and when he came to the corner

on 14th Street…(near the park)

Then he stepped off the curb

into the air!

He was flying!

He was taking off!

He flew!

He was catapulted

like a black arrow

shot off into the night

out of a beatnik cannon.

And he looked great!

And if it hadn’t been for

all that gravity

I’m sure he just would have kept ascending…

but that’s just the thing with gravity

here on earth

it’s an equal opportunity buzzkill….

So down he came landing

face first into the intersection crosswalk

his books and CDs flying in all directions….

Now he’s prone, laying there stunned in the intersection.

There’s a POET DOWN!!!!!

 

Get up Poet!   Get up!!!!

Do you have any idea how hard he kissed that pavement?

And just how hard that pavement kissed him back?

No. He didn’t bounce.

He stuck.

He’s still not moving…

The light’s going to change

There are rows of taxi idling

ready to run over his head and

leave tire tracks all over his beret..

The lights going to change!

Is he going to make it?

Look. They are starting to count him out…

1  -   2   -   3………….

THERE’S A POET DOWN!!!!

He looks dead.

He looks finished.

Could this be it?

Wait.

Look.

His boots just twitched.

His shoulders are arching.

4   -   5   -   6………………..

Look. Look

He’s starting to get to his knees.

Sure he’s shook

Shook to shit

Quick somebody

call his handlers

his wife, his agent

his kids, his lover,

his students, his old pals

Look!

He’s up on his knees…

He’s shaking…..rubbing the back of his neck…

7   -    8  -  9………..

HE’S UP.

ON HIS OWN !

Sure he’s wobbly

But he’s back up on his own two feet

gathering up his books, his CDs, his note book

the light is changing

this is going down to the wire

he’s staggering back to the curb..

(You know the one the stupid SOFAB tripped over.)

He’s seeing stars!

They are in orbit around his head like in cartoons.

He’s weaving back and forth…

THIS IS SO COOL!!!

What’s he going to do next?

Is he going to pass out?

Is he going to break down?

Is he going to burst into song?

Is he going to write about it?

THERE’S A POET DOWN !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

It’s finally clear.

He wants to go like this.

In the midnight concert saddle

with his boots on

at Christmas time

looking for his old friends

in search of an audience

any reason will do right now

better than the obvious explanation

the old fool tripped over his own feet

his own story

his own inability to let go of the past…

Even if the very worst had happened tonight

and he had been lower east side road kill.

A tragic paragraph in the morning Daily News.

If anyone remembered they saw

and told it to a reporter covering the story

(he would wish they would say this…,)

“ You have seen it… the unseen hand of fate in the night picked his ass off sniper style like the second reel of the Zapruder Film.”

YES!  THERE WAS A POET DOWN!!!!!

But now he’s up.

Seeking medical attention

at the nearest bar.

The bartenders prescribing Rolling Rocks

Poet is making out the injury report:

Bleeding knuckles

Black & Blue shins

Small abrasion on the bridge of the nose

Impacted incisor into the gums

Wretched back

Misc. bruises, scratches

And there’s good news:

No torn fabric

Minimum of visible blood

Jacket and jeans didn’t get too dirty from the street

and considering the licking he just took

it’s a miracle.

He’s sitting there looking as composed as he does

drinking that beer wishing it was a Miller High Life instead.

He looks like he was in a minor bar scuffle….

None the worse for wear.

He survived.

This kind of minor accident kills people around the holidays all the time.

But not him.

He survives to have to tell us

aaaaaallllllll   about it.

There’s a poet down.

A veteran of the old Rubber Rodeo

taking the ceremonial literary swan dive

header for the team.

Somebody.

Call Edger Allen Poe

Call Charles Bukowski

He’s leaving the bar.

Heading back to that intersection

on 14^th street, near the park

where fate just put his dick in the dirt

and his face in the asphalt crosswalk.

He knows his old pal will be there this time.

Waiting to take him to some party in Brooklyn

This just isn’t over yet.

You see.

THERE’S A POET DOWN !!!!!!

…but not for long.

Just try and keep him there.

*

From Cyberstein  -12/06

*

*

Baby Driver

                                    (For A.)

It was a mild December in the East

when she loaded up her 97’ Escort

with fresh retreads ditching the

balding baby boomer basket cases

and headed south to hook up

with Route 66

and head West.

She was dreaming Clint Eastwood

She had designs on an assistant position.

She was going to write him when

She arrived in LA.

Her 97 pounds of soaking wet

gleaming seal slick skin

clear eyes that shine

with a brimming

kind sure no bull-shit light

were going to see

every wild thought that ever

escaped her lips

first hand and in person.

This one was a throw back to another time.

Tom Wait’s niece maybe….

Or Jack’s daughter’s youngest girl

  This one was going to find a way

to have a good long look at what she wanted

of the future first hand.

   Not nearly content with the array

of weak adoring shaky men-boys

clamoring to suffocate her with

their needy weakness.

    Their nothing couldn’t hold her back

 So she sent her dad’s paintings out ahead of her

to pave the way

and left in the dust her mom who did some time

to have it out with her brother

in the trailer park

Tonight she rides Route 66.

Taking service station showers

in the sink

for 3 bucks

and emerging

wet, gleaming and beautiful

grinning at herself in the

mirror of that road.

  I haven’t met many like her

I think they are very few and

even more far between.

  She should have met Quinn.

Who liked to hop freights

and deadhead in the second B-Unit Diesel

out to Colorado while collecting discarded

workings man gloves scattered on the rails

to nail them to the kitchen wall

like an Art Project Montage.

   The “throw-backs” always seem to resurface

   And run into you

   And if they even run into each other ?

     Everybody better run for cover.

*

                                                                                                 From Cyberstein  07

*

July Abstraction

 

Muted phone ringing from the shower nozzle

announcing her flat tire in the Doctor’s Office

for a routine visit parking lot ordeal.

I was all wet and

failed to hear the distress beacon.

Meanwhile her Daughter struggled

with an important message and remember

her mother’s name.

I was never informed.

I was only taking orders.

Releasing the proper identification code

Triple A was dispatched and was in route.

When I arrived at work

Mental health was waiting

with a video-artist who wanted me

to talk off the top of my head about

involvement in the arts being a bridge

between sanity and the local homeless

populations struggle for employment,

rural reality with an urban contextual equilibrium

and intellectual/spiritual community based identity

supported in a half-way house residential setting.

After the camera stopped rolling

he pulled me aside

reassuring me that the independent film

project was still a go, my role in it assured

and no it wasn’t my fault the

leading man had gone insane last Fall.

 

The balance of the rest of the work day

operated within normal parameters.

The general population of the incarcerated

wanted no part of my services. Multiple refusals.

Only Mr. Clutter elected to be escorted by the guard

from Pod B to my basement facility to continue work

pursuing his goal of obtaining GED and compose poetry.

 

Driving back home in the late July

sunshine I experienced a rather unsettling

vague sixty mile an hour accelerated confinement

and isolation from everything Summer was

except through the concurrent

concrete ribbon sentence appearing

in my windshield like asphalt cell bars.

 

Mid afternoon I went to the bank

withdrew a large sum of money.

Seven new crisp one hundred dollar bills,

with enhanced security threads

and holograms to discourage forgery and a loan

dirty, limp, crinkled, worn, tired gray lettuce

tinted fifty with Ulysses S Grant scowling.

I immediately turned over this amount

representing half of the nearly bankrupt nation’s

economic stimulus stipend to all citizens

to my daughter’s mother in hopes the disappointment

of the mornings amnesia would be forgotten.

 

She took the money out of my hand.

Remarked she needed new tires for her car.

 

The phone was ranging again.

This time it was dry.

I hear it distinctly

I was at the sink practicing

my best Prufrock imitation

carefully counting spoonfuls

while making coffee.

 

It was him.

The son of a great brilliant Jazz musician

presently composing infinity.

 

I had listened to his old man’s music my entire adult life.

 

His son wanted to talk.

I was glad to hear from him.

It had been a long time.

 

However he was in an extremely agitated mood

His voice exploded in the phone.

 

Didn’t I know about the fuel cells that were methane based, people building cars with toilet bowls in the driver’s seat, Hydrogen on demand, the mutant killer seaweed of doom that was choking the oceans, the hand sake between Prescott Bush and Hitler and J. Edgar Hoover’s head mounted on a turtle’s shell draped with a pink lace pinafore ?

The government’s new Active Denial System Ray Gun,(Actually I did know about that one, the only problem was you had to catch your enemies in tin foil hats), what about his abacus beaded with skulls ?

Had I seen Raw Man around anywhere lately ?

What about Columbus signing off on a deal with Spain to buy all the souls in the new world before we even got here, that all our hearts need to beat with a hedgehog’s intensity to increase the amount of compassion in the world, we had the memory span of goldfish, we better start learning to float in our imaginations like porcupines, stop breaking all the octopuses’ hearts while remembering that ants don’t sleep. Armadillos can house broken. It just takes time and patience. As the icebergs are melting, they are making a fizzing sound. Betsy Ross was born with a full set of teeth.

 

I was lost. Grappling with the meaning of it all. It was no use. And then he said….

 

And of course….What about all the Blue-eyed Macaroni !?!

 

And last. I understood and calmly replied….O….now your talking the Four Horseman of the Semolina.   

 

Finally we had found common ground. The conversation ended on a positive and friendly note with his request I contribute an essay to a new project of his addressing a post-modern socio-political perspective comparing the Chicago based artist Dwight Kalb who had created a statue on Madonna out of 180 pounds of ham and the Greek Painter Zeuxis from the 5^th century who it is alleged literally laughed himself to death.

 

It was approaching supper time.

Ill relevant to me as I was fasting that day.

Went to the Supper Market in observance.

Had my favorite Cashier de jour scan my bag of ice

while discussing people who peeled their bananas

to eat stark naked discarding nature’s perfectly designed napkin.

She referred to me as dear, handed me my change.

 

Before I went back to work

I stopped in at the house

to find her car parked in the driveway

with three new tires and one worn defective

thread bare one that had been left on for

sentimental reasons…..

 

I went up to the University

to finally work with an electronic device

that could keep up with me.

I reproduced hundreds of copies

of lessons needed to start the semester

the following month.

The place was deserted.

 

I was the only one working this time of year

at this time of night.

Completing my task

I discarded everything in the recycle bin.

After all I had done all this before

and if I was lucky

would be able to again.

What better way to insure the possibility?

 

Now the sun was really setting on this July Abstraction

in great sideways shafts of yellow light.

I found myself with great thirst.

Drove straight down to the Dive.

Discussed baseball with the bartender.

We agreed in principle that 3.25 million

dollars was reasonable for a middle aged

middle infielder batting somewhere in the mid 250s.

 

I produced my notebook.

Two young tough looking barflies

started complaining about their warm beer to the bartender.

I took note of this.

One of the guys glanced over in my direction

And sneered, “ And just what in hell are you writing ?….”

 

I glared back at him over my sunglasses and with a bright menacing grin retorted…

 

“My Doctor thinks it’s a good Idea if I write…”

 

They tipped and left.

 

Just then a trio of young Harlots saunter in the bar expressly ignoring me as I wrote

as the old man I had become which might have been true enough

but I sat there ablaze in the sunset glare from the windows resplendent in

the glow of a July abstraction diminishing me however, but now I could clearly hear

the orange and red disappearing ball of molten flame ringing in my name.

*

 

 *

From The Terrible Now  -08

 *

 

 

All Outta Orange

                                                                                                                                   (For F.0′ H.)

 

I walk into the corner bar. Young artist are hanging their

work on the walls. The appear quite serious and sullen.

The dinner crowd strolls in. Ignores the paintings.

I have a look around at the art. Some styles appeal to me

more than others, however, I like the whole idea of it

just fine. After awhile the artists get up at the podium

down the far end of the bar to make a statement about their

work. Dinner crowd buzzes with small talk. Ignores the

Artists. Artists respond by cutting their mumbling short and

retreat to an especially dark corner in the back.

 

It’s business as usual. Bartender comes over bringing me

a fresh bottle of beer. I say, “I need you to do me a favor,

it’s opening day, could you put the baseball game on the

television.” She shrieks, “I hate you. “ My eyebrows flip

up. This is serious. I’ve devoted the better part of a

lifetime living by a simple, moral code: “Never piss your

bartender off.” I scramble for an apology. She meanwhile

is dutifully changing the channel while whining, “but

there’s a HOCKEY game ON.” I recover. “Not to worry, change

it back I only had a cursory interest in it anyway.”

She looks at me as her face twists into a question knot and

says, “A WHAT INTEREST???”

 

I give up. An “orange” interest, I riff out loud.

She shrugs. Tends to other customers. I scribble in my note

book;

 

“When Poets speak in color they are stuck with ears.

When the Artist paints with pigment the picture is at the

mercy of the eyes. So it stands to reason that the latter

is an image with no sound and the former is all hearsay.

The punch line is, however, you can’t dream of deaf

awake anymore than you can ignore the blind into seeing.

 

The bar starts to fill up. A quartet of beautiful

women arrive. Sauntering studs strike attitudes

accordingly. Dinner crowd ignores them. Young poet takes

the position at the podium. Tries to work his stuff out.

Dinner crowd manages some variation on a theme. One of

them makes a snotty aside. Poet cuts it short. Smattering

of indifferent applause percolates like stale popcorn

smothered in excess vegetable oil.

Man next to me in backwards ball cap and earring smirks,

“Enough of that sorry ass shit,”scans the hockey game and asks

“so what’s the score?”

 

A twilight tide leaks into the bar room, it’s last gasp coats

customers, artists, poets with a radiant fragile vermillion

shroud and for a shimmering instant a brilliant painting is

born, gasps and dies. Dinner crowd ignores it.

 

Bartender comes back with a cold one on the house.

I sigh relieved. All’s well. We’re pals again.

Host of the evening lurches up dejected. The night that

showed such promise is deflating rapidly. I try and help

by saying, “You know this reminds me of last night. I woke

up at three in the morning and couldn’t get back to sleep.

I’m worrying. My wife has the baby in less than a month.

Not only is our house a little brown shoe box that needs

a new roof for a couple of grand, it’s way too goddamn

small. I’m worrying that the new kid’s bassinette will have

to go on top of the television. I’m worrying that any day

now an inter-galactic kidney stone asteroid will make mice-meat

of this teetering global psychoses and some anchor person

on CNN will shit their pants on air, live in front of

40 million viewers. And then what? A nuclear free

winter for the next four years. Might be a little rough

ordering a pizza. So I’m worrying more. What if I loose my job

teaching in the jail? Worse yet, what if I keep my job

teaching in the jail? I’m worrying. I’ve still go

many bad habits. I drink too much. I smoke too much.

I’m never gonna pass muster at the social behavior

inquisitions of the new witch trials of the year 2015

And to top it off,  Bernie Madoff destroyed

N.Y. Mets !

 

So I get up and go into the living room and turn on

the TV. I find Fredrico Felllini’s Satyricon blazing away

life with the characters speaking in cryptic poetic verse.

As usual every other scene there is this set of eyes staring

out at you, watching you as you watch the scene. It took me

away. I forgot my troubles as I immersed myself in the story

of two young men having an epic adventure in grotesque Rome

as it shattered and collapsed under the sheer weight of

perversion, ignorance and brutality. It was great, ever

see it?”

 

I looked up. I was getting the hairy eyeball all

around. The woman sitting next to me was looking at me like

I was an escapee from Heaven’s Gate and was fixing to order

a round of Phenobarbital and vodka’s.

The bartender was polishing the glasses

shaking her head, she had heard this all before; nobody

within earshot had the foggiest notion of what the hell

I was talking about. And my young friend, the host of the

evening was giving it his best shot, “aaaaah, think I can

rent that down at “BLOCKDUMPSTER?”….”and what was the name of it again?”

“Orange” I said, “just ask for ORANGE.”

Guy next to me had heard enough. “You know I’ve seen you in here

before, whatyamean Orange, Orange what? Oranges are fruit

just like you are, you fucking windy old weirdo.”

“Nah,” bartender interjects dumping my ashtray, “Orange is

just a color, not my favorite one at that.” Woman next to

me dismisses the entire discussion with a hiss, “and you

don’t know your ass from an Orange hole in the ground.”

 

Subject gets dropped. Hockey games ends in a tie

in overtime. Artists take down their paintings. Poet

disappears into a pitcher of beer. Dinner crowd is

already home asleep in front of the tube.

 

Owner of the bar walks in.

We pass as I’m walking out.

He asks “Hey, how ya doing?”

“Not sure,” I go, “but Samuel Beckett would be proud.”

Owner yells after me as I walk out the door,

“Now don’t you fucking start with me!!”

 

From Another Rubber Eden

The Dybbuk Dreams

It was in the first few nights of the New Year

bastard asks how my TURKEY day was!”

 And how they cringe when you report…..

“Hey….this was my big year I managed to completely

defrost the MSG pigeon and not cook the giblets

in the paper packet inside the gutted body cavity.”

 

And the best part are all the relatives and in-laws

in the living room the kitchen, the bathroom, the telephone.

The measured, inquisitional, hyper calm voice of your mother

in-law on the line. You know the one who used to look  at you like

you are a were cross between Judas and little Charlie Manson.

She has been extremely patient with you.  Was sure you would

 screw  it up sooner or later. But so far ?

The Goddamn jury is still out.

 

The Uncles who after you ask for some advice can hardly

contain the merriment sparkling in their eyes saying,

“you mean to tell me, it’s taken you this long to realize

that you’ve been barking up the wrong tree for so long,

why it’s a wonder you can even still talk with all the

dead leaves stuck down your throat.”

 Ah yes…..

That old holiday neurotic

and it’s only the beginning.

The day after “Turkey Day”

is, of course, “Shopping Day”

on  Black Friday

 

The popular culture starts winding up the elastic

band of consumption, twisting tighter, smaller knots

of blind wild product orgy.

Perfect.

There may be a need for safe sex.

But safe shopping?

Nah.

Never.

 

Then PBS will start it’s a “Wonderful Life” loop.

George Baily in tears on the bridge in the snow.

Just before Clarence Oddbody and George Bailey

being booted out of Nick’s as the bartender snarls,

“Listen this is a bar for men who want to drink hard

liqueur to get drunk fast and we don’t need any characters

coming in here given the joint ATMOSPHERE. Now do I make

myself clear or do I need to slip you a knuckle sandwich

for a convincer!!”

 

And for once you’re not left in tears on the couch torn by the

realization you wished the angel just might blow

it. George would either drown or the whole town wouldn’t

show up in a spontaneous gesture of good will to pay

off his debts. And then off old George would be hauled to the

Can on Christmas eve as Donna Reed and the kids all sob.

 

It wouldn’t be a wonderful life but dammit to hell it

would be a real one.

 

And, of course, there’s the Christmas music.

Hitting the deck in the halls

Of Krap-Mart.

 As the PA system blares

 

O ATM, O ATM, O ATM, O ATM

(Sung to the tune of O Christmas Tree)

 

Why were the corporations pulverizing those

carols to death? The songs had long since lost any

meaning.  Now they were the obligatory soundtrack to the

mandatory consumption. It wasn’t fair. It wasn’t even music

anymore. You could not escape. You could not win.

The more reverent the sediments the more absurd your

surroundings became. Away in a manger in the

small appliance department. Standing in a line that snakes

back all the way back past stationary through woman’s

underwear to the little town of Bethlehem.

 

The endless march of faces.

Everybody looking like their own banal Commercial induced

product choice.

They looked like programs teetering on cancellation.

The droves.

It was the Battan Death March of December.

The vacant eyes. The jaws slowly working the gum.

Here come the eager.

Here come the weary.

There go the satiated.

 

 Shopping Mall zombies

 stumbling numbly across the tile while,

“Grand Ma, got run over by a Reindeer”  as done by Soul Asylum, blast out

overhead from the invisible P.A.’s

.

And your present this year?

Why it’s the realization you’re just another one of them.

No different. Worse really. You feel like this.

Shit! At least they’re happy…er…content…ah…well

adjusted to this convoluted contrived artificial cathedral

.

So shaddup and face Mecca.

(Currently located between Target & Best Buy)

 

Confused ? Use  your dumb-ass GPS on your Me-Phone to be directed to J.C. Petty and Sneers (sic) entrance to the temple…er I mean Mall…..

Trust me here…..it’s on your way….

 Of course….you could just skip the hole ordeal

and just get lost…

 

Ducking into a bar.

You sigh. ……Order up.

 And your shoulders slump.

 

 What the hell is the matter with me anyway ?

 

I feel like this all year round.

 

You know this just the start of

The Christmas time grind.

And in a blue funk you start a conversation with a stranger.

You both commiserate.

Yeah……… it’s so commercial.

Yeah………. it’s a big pain in the ass.

Yeah…………… ain’t like it used to be.

So you tell your stories of the Christmas past.

And your new friend tells his.

Then you both get real quiet.

Sit there elbow to elbow.

But not asshole to asshole.

Two tired souls not making it up

anymore.

Soon it’s time to go.

And as you shake hands and catch that something in each

others eye, while wishing season greetings, walk away

feeling a little better thinking,

 

“Christ, at least I ain’t as

bad off as that  old twisted crazy bitter bastard.”

 

So listen dumb-ass

You can get just your maetus on straight now

This year for Christmas

Shop early with your attitude and just lose that.

You know this season.

How good it can be.

Besides  you only get so many of them

Here on earth.

 

So get lost with cyber-Scrooge Vibe

Will ya ?

 

From Another Rubber Eden    Dec. 92-93/Nov 2011