sage

children

boast retorts

yet find themselves

devoid of inquiry

quick to mock

that which we do not

or

can not

comprehend

sardonic voices

raised

rehearsing former glory

resonate throughout

some cold cavernous

mold

that only you

have the power

to break

what

do you fear?

the unknown

outside

perish the thought

of parents

even

unlikely heroes

tumbling

in their caskets

to guard unceasingly

that sole remnant shard

of innocence

inside

lest we smash to bits

rend asunder

the one

who gave us wisdom

and

faculties of

reason

in the beginning

uprising

a borrowed shortwave rig with a broken dial string sings beijing's denial

in the wild wild west escape club prepares us for the 90s

girls look and taste like a corner store in the mall called pasta

still the 80s are in full blossom

guys sport haircuts we now wish pictures could lie about

and true freedom of thought bears a price tag in any age

we met last year and if only i could admit that it went to seed months ago

countless college mailings become buried in dust beyond the foot of my bed

didn't have her own sense of security so why not steal mine?

people my age were getting married in the newspaper already

started my first part time job which she probably found threatening

some dude staying down the street from her could bust moves like the new kids

any anecdote i tell that involves another female is hijacked by interrogation

she bleached her hair out of concern that people would think we're siblings

if i couldn't keep a date there was hell to pay

the slender blonds she works with may just as well soar among the stars

on the phone i learn first hand that she's a year younger than i had thought

you get what you get when you dive blind

we actually had a good time watching batman with my visiting cousin

yet on many a sultry afternoon i find her cool as an unearthed potato

my fledgling mustache would have been pathetic if it weren't so pitiful

some of us don't really experience life

evidently my family was too perfect for her to be comfortable around

so dancing boy whimsically fell short down there which makes it ok?

she went to a party where they all got quiet during stairway to heaven

instead we just observe others when we manage to crawl out of our grub hole

then one determined act of defiance was all i needed

well maybe two

if you count the time i called on a neighbor

seems the brother of one of my classmates snagged a piece of the berlin wall

and a flippant middle finger got me chased across the parking lot after work

on my 18th birthday

but permeating all this was a rare distant mood

beckoning eventide luminescence

hopeful and savory

anything is possible

at night the radio picks up worldwide rock from new orleans

seniors cut in the lunch line

because we can

a transfer student and pastor's son joins me in crooning some elvis

aqua-netted underclass hotties hit me up for change

love shack bayyyyy beeeee

time to live a little

or maybe

a lot

En La Isla Del Presidente

thanks to a broken down bel air

and distracted thugs

taking cover in some forgotten brush

at the edge of a cane field

strangely

i am not even startled

by desperate gasping

from deep within

tangled sinewy foliage

just a few steps away

supporting yourself with a bamboo tree

as though you had also

just arrived