You Choke

hey man, the universe didn't start with zero
'cause they didn't know where to put it so they had to invent negative numbers
time is a number line with jesus at the zero and two arrows with infinite ticks pointing left and right
i keep finding myself in the same back left seat in someone elses car on another road trip to chicago, new york, or in an airplane watching thunderstorms over detroit
and the east-bound short-night accelerated sunrise, is it quicker to travel west since the way the world rotates?
will california meet you halfway?
i'm sick of cigarette smoke in my hair, and the grease combed wig i wear at shows
i have no patience for sales tax and shitty neon signs
death is an arrow and the tick marks are parking meters
don't feed your kids dead flesh from the floor

your president is a hologram
with his manicured fingernails and a fresh haircut
danny glover is a hologram
with his barrel chest and beard
britney spears is a hologram
with a boob-job and lipstick
people that believe in holograms
eat gorton's fish sticks

it's true, virginia slims pays bea arthur thirty thousand dollars a year to smoke a pack a day
target says "here we grow again" as a positive statement
all these billboards directed at soccer moms in maroon wagons on four-lane highways outside of chicago, detroit, minneapolis, who's allowing blockbuster to tear down housing projects to have three stores in two blocks?
why does the winning world assume we're all self centered?

there is no room for rococo decadence in this new world
awaiting the nuke-bomb mad max makeover
the half-mast flag at the park shows proof of mourning 
on a dry blue sky memorial day monday, seventy five, sunny

..died, pulling a fifty foot flag, bit by bit from his fist
like a cheap magic trick
while standing in a bed of black-eyed-susans and wearing a store-bought blindfold
he'd be the first to tell you that if you get hit by a car hard
or stand too close to where a bomb drops in a city park bed of black-eyed-susans, it might just literally knock your socks off
and he'd hope that the flag's half-mastedness wouldn't spoil your beautiful september
afternoon cut grass sidewalk life
not even a bit
don't swallow the knife
no need to say shit
keep flying that kite