poem of the day 04.06.11

they have you

they have you
and they’ll always have you
holding you by your head
so that you cannot move or breathe
and they’ll squeeze away the life blood
like they were juicing oranges
the nagging wives and the husbands of gloom
the families with their yellow smiles
of torturous good will
the moron bosses with their weekend emails
the co-workers with their prime time conversations
the grocery clerks slamming the eggs
the neighbors with their unruly sense of self
the dogs barking in the dark morning
the cats scratching on cheap couches
the friends with their phone calls and need
the asshole stranger who says “hi” to you
on the sun-clogged street
the politicians with their bullshit rhetoric
the terrorists with their cable news fear
the actors and actresses with their
clowning make-believe bank rolls
the athletes with the cellophane confidence
the bookies with their vegas odds
the artists with the hardened paint and paralysis
the poets with their drivel words
the musicians simply playing music
the people stuck in traffic
with their death glares and coffee breath
the commuters dying on morning trains
reading digital newspapers of global sadness
the waiters and waitresses
with their spit-shine lunches
the bartenders with their kidney smirks
the police offers with the dull faces
the priests with their pubescent cocks
the grandmothers with their whiskey throats
and mothball hearts
they have you
and they will never let you go
until they suck the life out of you
leaving you prostrate on the pavement
one lost lump of flesh and bone and blood
and little else.