poem of the day 06.01.10

he gives it away

we sit underneath a canopy
and the rain falls
he tells me the world
is going to hell
that people think it’s
getting better but it’s not
i know this guy, he says
and that guy
neither of them have jobs
the only reason
that unemployment is going down
is because people are getting
kicked off of it
they’ve put in their two years
now they’re gone
my one neighbor
he’s thinking about selling his blood
tell me, he says
where are the jobs?
i shrug
there aren’t any, he says
foreclosures everywhere too
all you see are foreclosures, he says
as i watch the rain drip
and think of adding the cable bill
to the things that we can do without
you can tell it’s bad
just by looking at
the trucking industry
nothing being imported
nothing being exported
it’s just war and oil in the ocean
and fuck all of us, he says
then he stops and pours
more beer into his mug
i reach into the cooler
grab another miller light
my tenth of the day
this country ain’t what it used to be, he says
and it ain’t coming back
until we hit rock bottom together
you know? he says
i mean
do you get it?