Poem Number 22986

scraps from Ringgold, circa 1999

The clock face doesn't know its place, and starts getting out of hand,
jukebox starts playing old songs,
even as the speaker rots and warps,
through double doors come tweaker bots with twitchy revlon on leather-bound (can't judge a book...)faces serve up Dali Melts at this local diner, to the fried with their shakes,
too many miles,
and too much amphetamine
but seen in the corner,
a small army of the darkened young.
They order coffees and waters all around
from the waitress
with a cliche name
She does her duties
With a smile, with a hard denial of the cold, evil winds blowing through this small southern town, and she'll get tipped
for her efforts, because we all still wear rednecks under our uniforms,
this all occurs, gets blurred
while we wile away our will, driving around with no place left to go,
taking nothing but rights,
as is the right of small town teens,
cruising the streets and rigging our sails half mast to the tune of tornado weather,
we'll ride past the night before last,
pulling a drive-by to wave at her before it all comes crashing back.

and who'll cleans up the glass
when we smash the nights,
drunk from boredom
and angry from witnessing
hope's last gasp?

who'll get out alive,
when we round them up,
and shoot them all,
one by one,
and one for all?

I've died too,
drinking from the blue bottle,
while easing up on the throttle, I
fucked up the clutch, and blew out
my motor in an explosion of smoke.
what about you?
Why were you standing there in the rain,
right off the highway?

Nevermind,
let me show you something.

These are my friends,
the fiends,
my ends,
their means

and we seem really silly
in retrospect,
but inspect the tape
a little closer
and you'll spot a speck
of something much older
than the modern teenage,
something odder than man and apes,

the ubiquitous, hypocritical expression
of what a waste,
when our parents own stock
in the local landfills

once you get a taste,
you can't be filled,
no matter how much you long
for meaning

it's

something somewhat sadder
than a country song

once we're outside,
i'll explain,
i think you'll understand

-o-
-------
Good
I'll reread Camus
perhaps
The Plague
to brighten me up
a little
-------
You know who brightens me up?

Joseph Conrad.

He's so awesome.

-oephim
-------
very nice. i like: "because we all still wear rednecks under our uniforms", very cute.
lines in the first stanza are a bit too long for my tastes, but this is really just a matter of personal aesthetics, nothing is really lost, because it does work.
þ