day THREE HUNDRED and THIRTY SIX

For Trane's Giant Steps

the traffic lights on Western
change from solid to blinking
right at eleven every night

when I hit Liberty
I race through the Strip
windows down, heat on
the first winter night
John Coltrane's Giant Steps
blares, I'm not irritated
Jimmy Garrisons bass clips
from the radio tower

I drift through this nights
free Oberon pitchers
the lonely pit bull terrier
the frat dudes working
as an assembly line
on a teener of cocaine

I sit with the lawyers
hypothetically solving
all the world’s problems

it’s been a year since the coronation
of a madman, of a clearly transparent
puppet of class of oligarchs
somehow, we've yet to sink to oblivion
even as each day becomes
another crisis for a non-existent democracy

as the first clear waves
of resistance come into view
all the wasted narratives
of what is America
rings even more hollow than ever

--Jason Baldinger