Sold
Bruce Bagnell
well listen, tonight I only want to have a conversation
can we talk
about the closer and the closed, that is, you
first of all it was raining someday on the way to here
forcing me to pothole evasion, those things, mushrooms growing
under the recycled petroleum refining by-products you call an asphalt street
and there were the junkyard dogs sitting on top of hoods inside the graffitied fence
growl-staring with carnivorous eyes down the street to the underpass
where people throw things away
the mattresses mixed with old lath and plaster discards
from a remodel of upscale kitchens so necessary to keep things cooking properly
away from the cardboard box style of the dumped souls you want to ignore
listen, the long hair of one of those shopping cart campers drifted my mind around to the
prior night when I had heard the beats blow poetry out of their drugged asses
with the gravel voices of old age, their long hair as unkempt as any
in a contemporary setting of the old rebellious and maybe rude speakers
of some kind of truth set down in couplets, blank verse, stanzas
working toward ends until lights out
which brings it around to closing—doors slamming, poems ending with punches,
the TV pitching sugar drinks and violent games with your new more powerful car
(don’t attempt this at home, professional scripted actor on private stage)
and all of you already shut, bumped up, junked into the loop,
you working so hard at it that you had to spend for relief,
the drink, the white table cloth meal before returning to the sales seat in front of the set
listen, that’s the ultimate drug, you would consume more calories sleeping,
blowing on the day in REM, but there you are at the screen because--
because you are in the loop and don’t want to think about it
because outside on the way home it was raining and you were clipping potholes
in your musty old car ignoring the spray-painted messages on the overpass
talking about indigenous people and your need to care about the environment
while you were remembering the car commercial with zero percent interest for 90 days
the deal magnetically promising perfection in a cocoon of airbag protections
extending to your inner life and better orgasms too
but listen, I remember again that movie about the beats on Venice Beach,
the oil drilling towers marching along the sand and then later hidden clean away
for the surfing contests, the blade skaters and the body gawking boys,
suntan lotion and hot dogs, burning glances, bravado,
before stock broker lives, them too: closed or soon to be,
buying the icons of the culture where the beats used to blow about the pain,
do you remember Wally Berman said God is Love is Art
because most have forgotten or never knew of such a thing
in this world of glitter cloth camouflaged pot holes, your old soul gone,
traded in, used, valued back of book,
your authenticity is soft on the wholesale market, the closer said,
you are going to have to step up to buy your life back from us.
Bruce Bagnell
well listen, tonight I only want to have a conversation
can we talk
about the closer and the closed, that is, you
first of all it was raining someday on the way to here
forcing me to pothole evasion, those things, mushrooms growing
under the recycled petroleum refining by-products you call an asphalt street
and there were the junkyard dogs sitting on top of hoods inside the graffitied fence
growl-staring with carnivorous eyes down the street to the underpass
where people throw things away
the mattresses mixed with old lath and plaster discards
from a remodel of upscale kitchens so necessary to keep things cooking properly
away from the cardboard box style of the dumped souls you want to ignore
listen, the long hair of one of those shopping cart campers drifted my mind around to the
prior night when I had heard the beats blow poetry out of their drugged asses
with the gravel voices of old age, their long hair as unkempt as any
in a contemporary setting of the old rebellious and maybe rude speakers
of some kind of truth set down in couplets, blank verse, stanzas
working toward ends until lights out
which brings it around to closing—doors slamming, poems ending with punches,
the TV pitching sugar drinks and violent games with your new more powerful car
(don’t attempt this at home, professional scripted actor on private stage)
and all of you already shut, bumped up, junked into the loop,
you working so hard at it that you had to spend for relief,
the drink, the white table cloth meal before returning to the sales seat in front of the set
listen, that’s the ultimate drug, you would consume more calories sleeping,
blowing on the day in REM, but there you are at the screen because--
because you are in the loop and don’t want to think about it
because outside on the way home it was raining and you were clipping potholes
in your musty old car ignoring the spray-painted messages on the overpass
talking about indigenous people and your need to care about the environment
while you were remembering the car commercial with zero percent interest for 90 days
the deal magnetically promising perfection in a cocoon of airbag protections
extending to your inner life and better orgasms too
but listen, I remember again that movie about the beats on Venice Beach,
the oil drilling towers marching along the sand and then later hidden clean away
for the surfing contests, the blade skaters and the body gawking boys,
suntan lotion and hot dogs, burning glances, bravado,
before stock broker lives, them too: closed or soon to be,
buying the icons of the culture where the beats used to blow about the pain,
do you remember Wally Berman said God is Love is Art
because most have forgotten or never knew of such a thing
in this world of glitter cloth camouflaged pot holes, your old soul gone,
traded in, used, valued back of book,
your authenticity is soft on the wholesale market, the closer said,
you are going to have to step up to buy your life back from us.