Shopping malls and grocery carts,
slate grey skies,
prescriptions, prescriptions––
where did it all go wrong?
where did expansion end
and leave the wooded path
off in a parking lot
and who was pulling strings
at the casino, and where
did the hard earned money,
the Community Chest––
How did it get siphoned
into waves of
avarice, regret?
Like Baltic Avenue traded up to prison
stacks and stacks,
the luxury of nature hidden,
the Boardwalk.
Bankruptcy never entering into the equation,
the weighted wheel, the loaded dice––
Work is for suckers, right?
Money––just a way of acquiring a war chest.
The cast out, who swooned under wooden boards
on a Santa Cruz night
at the slightest gesture,
making love in the moonlight
as the ocean laughed
and found themselves
at the end of a snub-nose dictator,
doling lies as he motioned toward the iron gate,
inducing mongrel reactions,
humping the American public on his leg,
the country in heat for revenge
against phantom enemies, a vision
of humanity more Devo than talking head,
mucho headroom, less reality,
Viva device.
Aging, as others know it–––
a welling anger,
time, focus, gains, attrition
that ache the mere
reality of sagging balls.
The bell tolls, to whom does it speak––
manifest destiny or mass regret?
#endwriter