Negotiator

 
One day at work, we strained like cats and dogs. Buried up to our noses in regrets that we couldn’t go where we wanted, where there were things we wanted to see and to smell and to taste and to vomit back up afterwards. “It’s dangerous out there!” they would say to us, our watery eyes burning with pleas for freedom. “We don’t want you getting away, because we’d have to chase you and maybe put up posters.” So we languished in our pinstriped suits and mellowed leather briefcases, full of things that were of the utmost importance and no importance at all. We wished they would slip out, fall through the grates and drown in the sewers, pulp melting into the fabric of disgusting nonsense.

What would we do then? Handshakes and smiles, so we could sign the contracts at a reduced price and always – always – remember to lock the door after us. They weren’t kidding when they said it’s dangerous out there.
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Playing on my iTunes at this very moment:
Time-Lapse Consortium, Come Back Boomerang

Well then...

 

It's been a couple weeks, huh? I've been busy at work, getting a $3,000 raise on my second Friday there. But since I have an extra day this fine Independence Day weekend, I will be putting some new things together (finally) to put up on my formerly very busy blog. We'll see how this goes.

Notice

 
Vines once grew here,
from every crack
and every hole.
Bundles of sinewy green nonsense
babbling over everything,
runaway river.

Then we built it higher,
all of it,
financed and adored
with a catastrophe of riches.
It went up brick by empty brick,
snarling I-beams piled high,
daring you to ride
to the sterilized silver peak.

One day,
the buildings in this city
will grow tall enough
to block out the sun.
And on that day,
I'll consider getting a job somewhere else.
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Playing on my iTunes at this very moment:
MGMT, Kids (this has been stuck in my head all day)

Flawed

 
Cool lies melt in the spotty shade,
all they have built collapsing,
overburdened by the secrets it hides.
Poorly designed, it was almost made to fail.
Symmetrical snowman,
doomed to tip and blur into its surroundings,
to melt back into the earth
and feed another round, free of charge.
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Playing on my iTunes at this very moment:
Brother Ali, Preacher