remeber america
"scenes from the mall"

i was shanghaied to the dream boat,
a thing too sacred to flee
when i jumped ship in america
with broadsword and long eyes
dead things float like dreams here,
i got washed up at the mall
in the bright fluorescent corridors
of the morgue of the american soul
if you've been to hell,
to the annual masquerade ball
where everyone shows up dressed like you
you notice the faces
the spit shined shoes
stale airs of muzac
and yellow scent of popcorn,
a menu of social disease
is fitted to your hand,
a monosodium glutamate pill
and maybeline eyes descend
with cheap cologne emergent
from a place the sun refuses
there are children here of neon
flashing orthodontic magic
chasing america's great puberty nightmare
through the pulsing black light arcade
video junkies, strung out
a quarter for a fix
when the urge to kill is legal
you can't tell them anything
and you can't tell them apart
eletric walkman headsets
worn like crowns of thorns
someone else's voice
builds its nest inside their skulls
junk food rolls through teen veins
like a future car wreck
they never stop to wonder why
their hearts beat like caged beasts
or the wind like a scorned acquaintance
always seems to be running away
herd animals by instinct
they're an ad man's wet dream
at the drop of a festive hat
gathering at the slaughterhouse doors
waiting with adolescent pride
what could you ask of a voluntary slave?
to license their dreams for video rental?
blur all sweet eyes to a gentle honey glaze?
the mad men of mad-is-on-a-venue
suckle the warm teen blood
pinstripe wizards of market research
their pens are the red tipped swords
of inhuman dream thieves laughing
filling parking lots with clones
conceived in test tubes in taiwan
narcotic words soar on radio wings
into the subliminal child's
sponge sucking mind
O you butchers of euphoria
you well groomed mind raping leeches
i can't bring myself to touch you
i can't bring myself to touch
steel vultures leap through ozone holes
above president rambo sitting
bare chested at the last supper
sinking his teeth deep into
mutant ninja turtles
spitting bones to the floor
they roll past the maytag man
the tagman, drunk again, curses the sun
lights up joe camel
informs a disinterested goodwrench
you're goddamn right they're
gonna renew my contract
his free hand fondles
the boobs of painted mannequins
as the rats break through
the wall at baskin robbins
leaving footprint ballets in
cherry vanilla orange swirl
suddenly there's a sound like
the pits of hell boiling over
as the bowels of
first interstate bank contract
excreting the skeletal remains
of family farmers, journeyman carpenters
and juan perez de mananilla, the unholy ghost
who sold his first born for a green card
and a down payment on a ford
i wander to the river,
watch coffins floating past
the coffins all open at once
a million dead indians leap out dancing
it's another sacred war dance,
nothing humorous about them
painted ponies wail like demons
war becomes the womb of ghosts,
my mind becomes their battleground
get back to the dream boat, sailor
you know you know the way
i oblige instinct but en route, distraction
an alleyway, a passage, a gallery of vice
i run in slow mo leaping
the red heart of the center
when from the corner of my eye
a green steel dumpster glistens
framed in orchestrated red brick
pale steam rising
angelically from its core
i approach with student intent
to where the night is a woman that bleeds
there on the bleak and broken blacktop
in the acrid acid rain
the aborted fetus of christ
wrapped in the american flag
everything is wet,
i hear the yips of prowling dogs
yes, i did what any
red blooded american would do
i saw the flag and i saluted
for i am the last surving patriot in america
AND I AM WASTED

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