I

I’m going to release the song in my heart, and leap as I sing,

dancing over injustices and pain while I cense them with this perfume melody

(no, hush, don’t say they’re now merely snow-covered turds!);

they must be glad with me, their leaden sorrow alchemicalized into my joy,

or else we can retrain them to type smileys faster

(you know they just need to take up a positive mindset — it’s so easy!),

for there are no others in my song — no room in it for lead,

and so it can heal the world as it enters

my song’s rainbow digestive tract.

Smile! –and stop thinking so much!

 

II

Things are so expensive…

–but we couldn’t possibly…

We must park far away:

tremble we at the prospect of being nicked.

We must float the door closed,

no slamming,

no ramming — it’s all too strong,

the trembling;

no: we don’t dance;

turn the bass down,

no, the volume down,

and lower your voices;

nibble we our food

(no gulping, no shoveling),

sip our weak tea,

mumbling short phrases

in near whispers,

huddling at the table,

quieting the crescendoing thump

of the accelerando of our rabbit hearts.

The banks will fall apart, you know:

it happened in a third world country once,

during a regime change,

to my great-grandparents.

Oh, what a world.

 

III

I’m going to sit here, Criss-Cross-Applesauce,  or

no: I’m still going to call it Indian Style, and groan loudly

in mourning for old, phased-out names, for all to hear,

and slap my hands to ape-drum the asphalted earth,

which works just fine, but is going to be torn up anyway,

because some administrator will look good spending lots of taxpayer money

on marginally more eco-friendly materials,

while my friends and I sit on this faithful, condemned, unnoticed asphalt,

and scrape at our scabbed

and unwashed heads, uninsured, and unemployed,

because we aren’t being given –you know, that service,

and jobs are another service we’re owed– but they could,

you know — they.