[Newspoetry] 4 February 2007

[William Gillespie]

"don't you know, in this new dark age, that we're all light" -XTC

can't deal without the world, can't deal with it

political bulimia: binge on news and puke poetry
can't digest the stuff but can't go hungry either

couldn't make me quit caring, no matter how many barbs shards and 
fishhooks
filled the newspaper machine with bloody dismembered babies and broken 
glass
said this is what it means to be American, to be guilty of murders you 
tried to vote against

to piss away morality and prosperity through a spiritual catheter
to let empty claims stand in for being the best country in the world
to let ignorance blossom in the desert of one of the world's most 
envied university systems
to let your children watch murder and not sex
to legalize firearms and not birth control
to be born a place you dream only of leaving
imagined dignity lying mountains and deserts and oceans away
to have no recourse but to hate the haters back, ignorance of the 
ignorant a perfect wall

some trick played on you to prevent you from ever sharing your noble 
concern

bumper stickers will never help you connect to the car trying to pass 
you in the infuriating gridlock of rush hour, tailpipes belching the 
ashes of Iraqi civilians

fear the enemy of art, dirty red water to the blue flame

become afraid of the things you liked, bolting your doors and cursing 
even those you claim are friends?

No.

newspoetry will jack up your car so you can change the tire
will heat your home, soothe your wounds, make your neighbor smile
will erupt from under the sediment of sentiment

break you out of the crust of your death dance, locked in property 
awaiting nuclear bombs, hurricanes, anthrax mailings, semiautomatic 
weapons, skin as dark as the metaphor system you map onto it

remember the turkey is a fierce bird, and the bald eagle endangered

time will run out on us all, but the present is forever and always was
in this moment when time does not pass, your finances and health are 
stable

open your eyes and shine on

newspoetry now