Dirty Balcony

The Balcony is dusty, cluttered, unkept, a mess. It’s a few weeks since I climbed these stairs and the place has an unfamiliar look. There’s an empty Coors can that I can’t remember drinking, newspapers, a half-finished crossword puzzle, a solicitation from the Republican National Committee, an appeal for money from the ACLU, a tattered copy of the Nation; the War on Terror is endless and unwinnable, we’re killing the planet but it’s not politically or economically feasible to do anything to mitigate the damage, houses cost too much, schools teach too little, too many Mexicans stream across the border, professional athletes are overpaid, TV reinforces our collective stupidity, I don’t get why Paris Hilton is a celebrity or why anyone gives a fuck about Britney Spears, all the good poets are dead and not even rock & roll can save us; somewhere in America a child is born in poverty, somewhere else an elderly person is dying alone, the ghost of John Steinbeck is playing poker with the ghost of Tom Joad, while in central Baghdad another car bomb explodes and more innocent humans die, the wind rips at the trees, the side of the 101 freeway near King City is littered with discarded shoes, baby bottles, queen-sized orthopedic mattresses, beer bottles, pipe fittings, oil filters, pots, pans, and a bird feeder; what does it all mean? We are what we dispose of? Where is our Martin, our Malcom, our Gandhi? We are spoon-fed the Myth of Ronald Reagan, treated like children, denied the cold hard truth that might set us free, told that our only duty as citizens is to SPEND, SPEND, SPEND! Has the world always been this nuts? When was the Golden Age? Or is that another myth, like the one about the Immaculate Conception and the Easter resurrection? Don’t know, these questions are beyond me, I’m a simple man in a complicated age, an age where lies become truth and petty people hold positions of power, an age where five men can rule over how women use their own bodies; let the fuckers get pregnant, carry full term – then they can talk about reproductive freedom and the sanctity of the unborn. It’s Sunday. A church bell tolls in the distance. My children are drinking chocolate milk.