poem of the day 03.18.14

tourist towns can be a drag

especially when you learn that a record store

that you love is closed down

and you don’t even have time to give a eulogy

outside its soaped up and boxed up windows

because there’s a parade of tourists invading bleecker street

who all think that they’ve seen someone famous

is that such and such? you hear them say

who all want to pose in front of famous new york restaurants

holding new york city slices of pizza or new york sized bagels

while you’re standing there in front of the dead record store

wondering what in the fuck happened to it

telling yourself that you’re not going to buy

these albums on itunes out of solidarity and spite

in fact, the neighborhood looks really different now

you’ve only been living in this city for ten years

but even you can recognize the change

it’s all chain restaurants and specialty shops

places for the tourists to buy authentic new york this and that

to take back to middle america or middle earth

or whatever podunk town these invading, multiplying cretins came from

and you hate these fuckers so much

you start talking out loud like a madman

shouting about how much you’d like to send these people

back to their america in one of the knock-off gucci bags they bought

they look at you like you’re all part of the experience

so you settle for your own slice of pizza instead

inside a pizza shop that you didn’t know was famous

because it’s always been around

but it must be famous

because such and such ate there and has his picture on the wall

right there underneath a horde of teenagers from ohio

in matching coats and hats

singing this insipid pop song at the top of their lungs

the one that will be stuck in your head  for the rest of the day

these clueless millennial, verruca salt pricks who killed your record store

with their cell phones and digital downloads

because they have to have it NOW

the ones who invaded your city

on what was supposed to be a peaceful winter sunday afternoon

these aliens who won’t’ stop singing and taking pictures

laughing out loud and shouting

about what a bunch of dumb tourists they are.