The Lament of Last Century's Escape Artists

Here's to the new, trying ever so hard but not too hard
to have an audience with their own personal God on
their own super duper terms, wonder kids. Aren't they
beautiful, one of a kind cells, Ladies and Gentlemen? The
paint job alone is worth the price
of admission on this one. Quiet you.
They haven't even had their best days yet.  So don't

you dare point out the obvious oncoming smoke 
filling the horizon to them.We'll die in their places like always. We'll leave 
first. Look. Doors automatically open wide as
they parade on through, oblivious to the ash that fills up their lungs. They're still inventing what
life is supposed to look like on
a daily basis. Isn't that so cute? Take a picture of a picture, why don't you? Unfortunately
right now it looks like a new-social-media

device every five seconds or so, that's
about the size of a could be,
but won't be lover's hand. It's a 
lonely little room, full of an infinite amount of more and more empty rooms, in a mirror.  
They've fallen off the visible cliffs in clumps and
droves but are not entirely broken to pieces yet.
It's a grand old light show,all sweet radio

crackles and robot sparks, from way down here below the self-imposed radar.
Perhaps, if we bothered to gather up
a few of their strewn about hearts
and held them up together in an ancient
circle we could make one beat sound
as if it cares to harmonize with
the rest of humanity? Maybe we should

be helping them out before they hit the you know, the sweet
flattened out bottom? We all know what that's
like. You live within smelling distance to
love again, but no where near its 
lush orchards. Yeah I know. There really
is no other way. It hurts but
that's what happens when you fly directly

into the sun every chance you get.
Dreams drop off into the ocean, while
you're smiling like an idiot at your
own cleverness. You can't find water in
the ocean. We should speak. We all
stink of burned and broken things. No
wonder they don't want to come anywhere

near us. They like the ice cream
smell of their own brightly painted feathers. And,
somewhere in that ballad where lies the
borders of either madness or gladness, they already suspect the obvious
worse. We've given them a world of
shit. They want to change that around if they can.
Can't say I blame them.







Bonus poem:

She just happened

to be playing the hell out of
her  guitar out of tune and wonky sounding
perfect for the blues at the same
time as his car was pulling out of
the driveway next door to the rosebushes
that only bloomed to one side.And the

telephone pole was sputtering up-top from being
pecked at by a huge black crow when
all of a sudden there was an
enormous pressure drop in the wind outside the
house and her cell rang twice but
no more than that. After which it remained
silent as a fish.As she finishes her pleating the

rains do come to town and the door banged open and
the porch-swing was yanked from its chains
and rolled into the swing set like a jagged
pumpkin-mouthed scarecrow's head.She giggled without any awareness of comedy, nervously, like a tea whistle all but spent,
the baby wailed and the lights went
out.I was just driving my car

off the bridge when she lit the last
candle and sat down and pressed her
breast into the baby's face and hummed once more sweet
lyrics into its perfectly glowing ears. It all
cleared a few minutes later like the same
dream. I floated down the river looking
for a ladder. Or a tunnel to heaven.