Someone somewhere bashes open
dream rocks of cement to reveal an
aluminum Sphinx and a granite government rooted in despair and
disrepair.
Someone somewhere is incomprehensible, is in prison, has wild eyes,
longs for holy solitude, juggles a thousand blind skulls, and eats his
soul for an encore.
Someone somewhere screams like an animal trapped in skeletal suburbs
of a spectral nation whose stone old men weep unconsciously telling
stories of new loves.
Someone somewhere whose blood is running money goes mad, hallucinates
invincibly, yells to unknown people, and climbs stairways of suicide
to crossbone electric jailhouse city hall poverty.
Someone somewhere whose skyscrapers stand lifting the city to heaven,
whose heart is pure machinery, carries the vast spectre of genius to
the tomb of the children, screaming cannibal love songs.
Someone somewhere whose name is the nightmare and the miracle who is a
straight shot to the light streaming out of the sky and down street of
our American river has visions in glorious technicolor and spews omens
in hydrogen fire.
Someone somewhere cries, smokes, laughs, waves, gets comfortable in a
robot apartment with a boatload of sensitive demon smokestack ecstasy
waiting to abandon or be abandoned, to connect or be connected, to
dream or be dreamed, all in good time.
Someone somewhere sits lonely and invisible whose love is an endless
oil ocean under armies of clouds marching like thousands of Jehovahs
and thousands of Molochs and thousands of Yahwehs and thousands of
© 2006 Charlie Newman
Midnight radio static
snap cracklin' popular voiceover meaning-under
messages filtering through this that or the other uncoordinated
cartesian cosmic backwaters from here there or wherever non-stop
maniac motivational left right front-and-center cognoscente congregate
Tears flow like sweat in some equatorial third world shithole
running-shoe sweatshop but not from me
Words gush like blood in the goriest killing room in the busiest
sausage factory in carnivore-town but not from me
Prayers issue forth like carefully misdirected declarations from the
imperial White House rose garden but not from me
More often than not the long of it and the short of it and straight
down the middle of it are no more and no less than a video-snowjob we
all take for granted knowing that no matter what else may happen the
species will go on and the nation will go on and the family will go on
and he will go on and she will go on and they will go on and you will
go on and I will go on as the speed cranks up and the blades get
sharper and the wind whips in from the West turning on tuning in and
tanking out
and there but for the grace of God go I
Moonlight love making isn't the closing scene in
this movie, Amigo,
there are animated cave paintings guaranteed to go down as comfortably
as campaign lies in ringing ears and pressing flesh as hands slip in
and out of back pockets Houdini smooth first kiss shy and stiletto
simple
Total methamphetamine mayhem roller-coaster poster-boy celebrity
sightings asphalt arguments third-degree directions from here to
wherever and all you have to do is choose the short route or the
scenic route or the safe and secure route and where's your cocaine
when you need it?
Rinky dink methadone momma shape shifting for the local P.T.A. speed
shifting for the local F.O.P. flour sifting in the ultimate endless
attempt to be the spitting image of the pre-prison media-maven Martha
Stewart who truly believed knees were invented for gardening instead
of sex
and there but for the grace of God go I
Monkey blood bourgeoisie picking through the
thin-blooded discards of
some out-of-sight out-of-touch out-of-its-mind genteel society looking
for credibility looking for validation looking for dessert
Morning breaks hearts stomps dreams flatter than an anorexic amoeba
shatters what it doesn't leave in tatters and pisses on the rest
Meteorologists from coast to coast predict stormy weather and the sale
of umbrellas peaks like the birth rate 9 months after the blackout
and there but for the grace of God go I
Teachers strike
Giving hundreds of thousands of undernourished students
An example of democracy-in-action bumping the sale of the drug of now
and there but for the grace of God go I
Politicians consider passing legislation
To outlaw strikes by teachers
But only if they can tack on a rider
Raising the pensions of those
Who vote yea on the bill in question
and there but for the grace of God go I
Drowning gentlemen sleep beneath bridges
Under the face of the Lord
and there but for the grace of God go I
War corpses in rags of unrevised history crawl from hastily-dug holes
in the Earth to claim their death right
Amidst a fabulous fandango a furious flurry a fastidious
formula of words so artfully spoken your head spins in a constantly
collapsing card house of hope and glory
To please your senses deaden your mind and desensitize your
soul
and there but for the grace of God go I
David Letterman unveils his latest Top 10 List Jay Leno reads 100
new stupid headlines Ted Koppel uncovers yet another scandal
Bill O'Reilly foams at the mouth over some imagined liberal atrocity
for the umpteenth time Phil Donahue gets flabbergasted and irate
upon discovering some people are treated unfairly...again Rush
Limbaugh gains another pound and takes a pill to ease the anguish
Ted Kennedy makes the same old speech and drinks one for old-times'
sake another CEO collects hundreds-of-millions-of-dollars for
cutting costs by laying off tens-of-thousands of lowly-paid workers
and driving the company into bankruptcy and
Across the land of 500 boredom-busting tedium-terminating ennui-ending
entertainment-never-stops cable channel choices the snore roars on
and there but for the grace of God go I
Yes
and there but for the grace of God go I
© Charlie Newman
