POEM

When a Community wants to be mildewy,
when grotesque is replaced by sarcasm,
balks at the rubber on the mound,

ungovernable derailings twang from song
in an anybody’s-guess-kind-of-way, then
ruthless does the day tip one’s hat backwardly,

without a nod. I pass through a store; a girl
with pink hair seems heavy with boredom
& her mother says “OK?” to me, angrily,

after I said “Oh, sorry,” after stepping in their
paths, accidentally. Flash of lightning in the sky
of conglomerate ominousness, sticky as

Oobleck Suess-treks; what piles up higher
than memories? Books that taunt on a bedside table
or on the side of a bed? Is it late October?

Why is it so cold in late-June? The hammer
of globalization, to be concerned about
being spied on is like chewing dirty words

until the lips leave entrails. Sloppy executioners,
treacherous, yet cheerful—the lunatics rage
from the courthouse, singing the volcano “alive,”

waiting for it to immortalize itself into the
History Books. All’s I can say is: Pickily,
well not-so-much, Good has become Bad & Bad

has become Good. My mirror neurons mourn;
I stick out my neck for anyone, like an accidental
canvas. The man across the street blows his nose

with his dirty handkerchief as I stare on, scribbling
down words as my eyes pull redness from a sunset;
my head, longing for a pillow made of gravestones.