Squeak

Painting by Phyllis Stewart


Squeak

"What sphinx of cement and aluminum bashed
open their skulls and ate their brains and
imagination?" HOWL and other Poems.


On the email this morning, no one
had anything nice to say.
Just that I should send some
money or protest some
injustice, and all I need to do
is click.
My friends, except for one or two
have given up their typewriters.
Cigarettes went long ago. Any day
we'll trade in our t-shirts and levis and
be expected to behave maturely.
I go with the flow, not very
controntational. My mother used to
warn me about being deported. Even
60 years in America and I still consider
English my second
language, though I hardly
speak my first.
My cousin from New Jersey thinks I'm
unrealistic. I don't subscribe to
cable or the morning paper, and quickly
get bored at Wal-Mart though I
shop there all the time. It's hard
beat their prices no matter how
polictically incorrect.
I dream of traveling to some country
without cellphones or McDonalds but
there are hardly any left. Even
Cambodia and Afghanistan have lost their
exotic appeal due to over-coverage
of our wars.
And China
shipped its last pandas
to the zoo.
Out the window, the wind
stirs the dust and pollen
and makes things move like
shadows through the trees.


Joseph Somoza

Posted over on Metropolis