poem of the day 05.03.10

just another thing dying

i don’t know when it was
that the idiots took over everything
maybe it has always been
or it’s just gotten worse
but i can’t stand the digital clatter
the people dressed like rejects
from music videos
crowding the streets
stopping every few steps to check
on some inane message
broadcast via a sleek black box
while i’m trying to get an afternoon beer

take this joint for example
the old bar on st. marks place
from the 1970s beyond the 1990s
great conversations and gossip about art
went on here
on weekends the place was packed
with the lonely, the intellectual and the hungry
right now
two blondes are discussing shoes
they’ve been on shoes
for almost an hour now
they’ve said all there is to say in the world
about shoes

the prick sitting next to me
with his john kennedy teeth and hair
is discussing the virtues of a $2 beer in manhattan
to his girlfriend who wouldn’t condescend to drink one
he calls it the new york experience
having a cheap beer in this bar
about the beer, i understand his plight
i just can’t relate to him
his drinking it with a sense of irony
while i’ve known men who have
shot this swill down as a means of survival
as for his woman
well, she’s wearing gold shorts, blue tights,
and sunglasses in a dark bar at five in the afternoon
so that pretty much says the mother-load about her
and when he leaves her to take a piss
she checks the text messages on her phone
to see if there’s a better game than this one
in town

still, i can’t shake these kinds of people
they are everywhere like roaches
with their heads snapped off
they bother me more than bills
and the forty-hour work week
they encapsulate something portentous for me
they define the downfall of man
better than oswald spengler ever could
better than the ennui of lovers talking into their phones
instead of to each other

or maybe their being in this place
at the same time that i am
is an even greater harbinger of doom
the last call for a generation
that never got off the ground
just another thing dying
on these plastic, happy streets
where everyone claims to be broke
but there’s a cash machine
and a frozen yogurt joint on every corner
and if something heavy goes down
it’ll be broadcast on my computer
fit for public consumption
one million hits of pure entertainment value
before i’m even home
getting that great machine of mine
hot and ready to blow.