notes and papers everywhere on this old desk…books…a coffee pot…winter caps that have kept me warm in Midwest winters…boxes of cereal…a credit card…who are you kidding…it’s a debit card…unpaid bills which will always be unpaid as the credit rating goes down…again…who am i kidding…i never had a credit rating…pens and notes…written reminders to read First Samuel to Isaiah …Isaiah to Mathew…let the Old Testament teach you stories of man and how mistakes pave the way to…to what…a kingdom…

there is no kingdom…not here in america…not in this Midwestern town where poverty is still king… youth with money and girlfriends drive down streets in a cold night air… bums walk from stranger to stranger asking for a buck or two…they’re on the make just like salesmen are on the make…attorneys on the make… judges over in the courthouse on Main Street are on the make…a whole country on the make…in search of what…a nation that doesn’t exist anymore…gone gone gone….and it’s never coming back…

gone from New York City where dagos still flip pizzas in midnight hours and spics bus tables and honkies preach the gospel of salvation found in an invisible spirit…a man who once walked the earth with long blonde hair and blue eyes they say…that’s what the pictures tell us…

and in St. Louis…where brothers sit by bus stops smoking pot in broad day light…troubles piled up for generations and generations to come…just like in Chicago…Cleveland…Detroit…they sweep up enough change for a pack of Swisher Sweets and are satisfied for a short time as smoke fills the lungs and the city’s other toxins ruin their guts as well…rotting rotting…a whole country rotting…and who are we to stop it…

we are no-ones…peasants…a class left behind …dust piles up on the bar and another drink is served…just one more before i go home and put my wary head to rest…gunshots go off and whores appraoach me…walking home in the Midwestern night…walking home…walking home…past old torn down buildings on the Southside…dogs bark in purple hours…i am home…i am home before i get home…this is my home…poverty is my palace…