Kiss My Apoca-Lips Remix

image borrowed from bing

December 31, 1999

kiss my apoca-lips remix



It's the end of the word as we know it,
and REM told us, twelve years ago, to feel fine,
the book stores shelves're lined with Left Behind
preacher's benediction is escape plans for end times
& Prince, not yet a symbol, sings, let's party like it's 1999---

I'm nothing special, paying bills with dimes & nickels,
driving dad's suburban to work, (until the belt broke
& can't even fix it, late already on our payday advance)
cause my truck's a horse late for the glue factory,
flat tired & busted slowing rusting, outside our apartment
in low income housing, and i don't even own a working television
to watch the ball drop, computer crash, Y2K bugs crawling
out the cracks, everyone praying Jesus comes back
with a bus big enough, and accepts our ticket,
before so they ain't gotta experience it---

so we stroll main street, among the hundreds
that don't want to be alone if this is it and tomorrow
is a stone age remix, there is nervous tension,
& questions
& questions
but it's free and fun, let's party like it's 1999
because this moment is the only promise we have
and ten, nine, eight - everyone holds their breathe
seven, six, five - the natives are restless
four, three, two - close your eyes and kiss
one &

a new millennium, nothing changes,

& everything changes, life turns, i sell out to corporate,
make six figures, get comfortable, then refind my heart,
quit, scrape by back below the poverty level, multiple
cars come and break, shit happens, you learn to expect it,
but the big difference

is when they say the mayan calendar is ending,
i figure nothing is new, just undiscovered country,
an adventure begun when the world started spinning,
a dance in which you got to find the rhythm,
but only if you're dancing----
& whatever turns the record takes on the table,
we'll find the steps, so DJ
play that beat
& bear witness---(scratch)

It's the end of the world as we know it.
It's the end of the world as we know it.
It's the end of the world as we know it
and
I
feel
fine


Brian Miller

Posted over on his site Way Station One
Listed as #2 over at dVerse Poets-Poetics 1999