The Dream Is Over pt. I
It was all good once.
Football games on Friday nights
and maybe second base
under the bleachers
before the last call cigarettes
and coffee
at the Red Oak Diner.
The future American heroes saved up
for Monday morning war stories
and the lucky ones
got fist pounds and made bets on what
was next.
But the stars fell close.
And the good ones got out.
And those years
that once felt endless
didn’t prepare us
for a future alone.
A Life
I used to walk around and look at alleys
or hidden corners of parks
and think,
when I’ve finally lost everything
I can be homeless here.
But then I got older and
left New York.
I drove through Appalachia
and the sad and stalled Midwest
and finally made it to
Montana,
where the wheat was so healthy
it was almost gold,
and no money
had ever talked to the land.
It had escaped the experiment.
It remained free.
I saw myself as a successful writer looking
out over that grass and thought,
someday when I’ve had enough
of this awful world
I can kill myself here.
And that’s why I leave
instead of just signing the lease.
It’s hard on the soul to stay.
I hit a new city like a camera
and memorize everything.
And once I’ve drank in all the bars
and had coffee in the morning
it’s time to run.
It’s the same conversation every time.
With my girlfriend,
with my mother,
that it’s nothing
they did,
I just never learned
to take life
as it comes.
There’s never been a past,
it’s all new to me.
Maybe you know what I mean.
I’ve looked at women
with the old soul eyes,
who’ve stood on this dirt before,
and they know for sure
this is just one life
and so it will be again.
But not me.
I clocked in with clean lungs.
A boy that learned fear.
That became too sad to cry.
That didn’t know
there would be a second chance.
Always remember,
if there’s nothing left to lose
run for the finish line.
Always remember,
it’s the fight of the century every time.
Always remember,
death
will be easier.
Songs For The New War
I’ve heard songs for the new war.
They chant over crank radios
like heartbeats from a Shaman’s drum.
They come out of subways on
a three-string guitar
and the words of a runaway
who still believes in his favorite band.
They live in hog squeals you can hear from
rooftops in Chicago,
trapped in perdition,
riding the currents of the universe
like a crest without a trough.
These are the songs for the new war.
I heard my first from a Rat King
who ended his sermon with, “
Humans have infinite past lives ... but animals get none.”
I heard my second in a dream where
a black moon rose over a shallow lake
and tadpoles swam circles around the reflection
like black stars in orbit.
Is this what gets lost when we die?
Does the melody cling too tight to your soul?
What if you kept in no tears
and never found a lie you didn’t tell?
Anyone who ever lived,
any martian who ever visited,
any elephant who ever buried its friend,
it’s all led to this.
And when the messenger arrives
no one will ask about
his chest full of arrows.
And no one will care about the conclusion
of free will.
The songs of the new war will fade out before their last chords.
They won’t be hummed in the FEMA camps or by the future Reichs.
They’ll be buried like the family dog,
mourned for an hour
then immediately replaced.
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