Let us go then, you and I,

When the dawn is spread out across the sky.

On certain half deserted, late night flights,

The muttering plights,

Of restless, sterile nights

In a desolate age of consumers.

 

To meetings that follow tedious arguments

Of contractual intent

That lead us to another and another

Underwhelming question

Or two.

 

On the speaker-phone the voices come and go

With never a mention of where the water will flow.

 

And indeed there will be time

For deadlines and timelines and project design lines.

There will be time, too much time

To prepare a face to meet the faces that you meet.

To present, to pretend, to extend 

A hundred visions and revisions

To a hundred indecisions.

Wasting away her life-line provisions.

 

On the speaker-phone the voices come and go

With never a mention of where the water will flow.

 

And indeed there will be time

To wonder, “Do I dare?” and “Do I dare?”

Time to turn back and descend the stair

And ponder, should I be fair?

Should my jeans be tight or loose?

What are Uggs and who is Juicy Juice?

And are we using a generation’s excuse to consume?

Son, hurry! Fill the cart up, it’s the baby boom!

And will governments make room to improve?

 

Do I dare

Disturb the admin to the assistant’s,

assistant to the universe, at all?

And if I do, will he or she

Realize overshoot day, isn’t for the long haul.

Rather, declaring an annual curtain call

But when dealt the final consequences

We complain to America’s pastime, like what’s with this curveball?

 

 

2.

 

For I have known them, known them all

My day job’s days

Mornings and afternoons inert

I have measured out my life with shovelfuls of dirt.

 

And I have known the eyes already, all young

The eyes that fix you in a formulated pitch

A single, high concept, through line,

Active characters and a third act switch

And when I am pinned to the couch and hung

How should I have begun

To spit out the butt-ends of my stories addiction.

 

How could I presume,

And why did I digress,

And a hundred other questions

About my lungs lack of healthy success.

 

Are tempting, easy vices.

Do I have the strength

To force the moment to it’s crisis.

But though I rage and scheme

And ring my hands in anguish.

Does it really matter?

Am I sustainable , can I command a room

Are Americans really getting fatter?

 

I have seen the moment of my contradictions flicker

And sometimes on the speaker-phone, I hear the Chinese boy snicker

And in short, I am afraid.

To undergo guilt for a single iPhone paid.

 

 

3.

 

And have I really tried?

Have I tried hard enough

To squeeze the universe into a ball
Or have I simply said,

“That is not what I meant,

That is not what I meant, at all.”

 

I beg the favor of Attendant Lords’ attendants.

Deferential? Glad to be of use? An easy tool?

Yes, yes and yes

In short, the fool.

I grow old… I grow old…

Should my designer shirt be rumpled or have a fold

Is maximum consumerism, congruent to fools gold?

 

Should I wear sunglasses on top of my head?

Are they the right shape, out of date?

Am I dead.

 

I will linger in the chambers of mother earth

With my lover and myself, we ask for a second rebirth 

My friends and my home town falls into satirical mirth

Where human voices wake me, before I drown

Mother earth can only have one, a virgin birth is only allowed

 

Restrictions and Regulations, Societal policy’s

The chains of mankind, making us perishable commodities