This night in Dayton times goes slow
as the hot night before labored ever on.
Today was so long the broken clock did crawl
but not as long as yesterday’s labored draw.

This day it makes me so lonesome and tired
it wasn’t like this, oh those long summers ago.
These days bore with no fighting, no crossing the wires
into hostile lands, to take back what they stole.

No games this night, no festivals are flowing
with music and drink and gambling for gold
no long days floating on the tepid canal
or laughter from jokes the trickster has told.
 
The scrapping goes lean, the loving goes leaner
the towers all scavenged, the skyscrapers gone
the tubes on the teevee no longer flicker
the line on the tele connects to no phone.
 
The streets of the city are busted like rubbers
tires from the cars melted down for the tar.
The steel it was shined for the weapons of robbers
but in that old melee I was too young to spar.
 
No football gear ever again to be worn
no basketball dribbles on the court to be played
the horn of old plenty from the root it is torn
by the government, corporate, the people betrayed.
 
My plight is all somber like this thick Dayton heat
I’m wretched as an airplane with its last tank of fuel
gathering plastic bottles in the ruined streets
this night in old Dayton is as long as its cruel.
 
The last famous star men are long in their grave
and with them their toybox of endless supply,
and this night in old Dayton, cannot be saved,
the cracked concrete is ruined, I’m no longer spry.
 
Where in this dead city did the rest flee?
O where, in the world did my countrymen go?
I’m alone in the desolate streets of old Dayton
until the pit opens up and I go far below.

​I was born up in Cleveland, a city you may know,
my parents hard workers, to the factory did go;
my folks were pious, sent me to Sunday school
didn’t raise me up to add to the human cesspool.

​Then I got in with girls, guns, drugs and gangs
skateboarding, tags, graffiti, talking heavy slang
when my words hit the wall from the spray paint can
the cops were right there waiting to throw me in the van.

What I had in my pocket, it really made them scream
a semiautomatic with a loaded magazine
I was taken to the station, and then I went to jail
by iron bars surrounded, my poor folks refused to bail.

They held me in the juvey, for what seemed like forty nights
I learned how to do more crimes, & started picking fights.
I drank the jailers moonshine whenever I got a batch
it tasted like cough syrup, but I shoved it down my hatch.

It wasn’t the only thing that got shoved when time came to push
from behind, ambush, someone sliced my ruddy throat with a shiv
spraying blood all over the linoleum, I almost didn’t live.
Nobody said the living was easy or this was going to be cush.

The next day I plotted back on how best to get revenge
so in the play yard I got a rock, clobbered him like stonehenge
busted up his skull so good he was surely going to die
the jury found me guilty, electric I was sentenced, in the chair to fry.

​So they had to move on, sent me down to Mansfield town
I’d moved up to the big time, with my hangman’s head swinging down.
They put me on a southbound bus on a cold December day
I could hear my mom and dad crying, I had surely lost my way.

My dad he turned to drinking, and started going to the bar
my mom with spirits sinking lost sight of her guiding star.
She would come to visit me once, every couple moons
we’d between the glass, her heart had been harpooned.

I once had a girl in Cleveland town, a girl now I know I loved,
If ever I get my freedom back, I’ll act as simple as a dove.
If ever I get my liberty, this thug life I’ll surely shun
sipping drink and slinging drugs, fighting and shooting guns.

To you who have your freedom, pray keep it while you can,
Don't run around like a stupid clown and flaunt the laws of man;
for if you do, you’ll find yourself in a sorry state  like me,
rotting away behind bars, in the state penitentiary.

​CompleXities eXplained away by Boomers
             with no sense of guilt for eXcess
    becomes an eXcuse to do an end run nose dive
      leading by eXample straight to siX feet under.
 
One foot in the grave & still trying to hold on
        to the dyskinesia of gerontoXicity
        clutching the pill boX of the gerontocracy.
 
We are graphic designers inspired by FluXus
     who skip the eXamination to go on to the neXt McJob,
           feeling a sense that the future has been eXploited



sarcastic irony is a way of life when all things feel caustic
                     to the eXtent (of eXistenz)
that even I don’t need to put on my They Live X-ray speX
to see through the feigned fog of their neuropathic compleX.
 
       psychiatry industrial
 
Go back to your suburban dupleX
and your Viagra dreams of oral cyberseX
as we contend with fixing broken hyperteXt
collecting tchotchkes and Ikea objects
playing in basement bands and ministudio side projects.


Contend with too many Comet burritos
craft beer, now acid refleX, slow down reflects
try not to worry about making rent
or when its going to bounce, that check
or about lung cancer when smoking after seX cigarettes.

Let’s look each other up in the rolodeX.

This is a leXicon for the unorthodoX
follow the path of the bright eyed foX
into our own escape-from-reality sandboX.

​We eXult in all things auXillary
even as you ignore us in economic pillory.

We put it down all right there, in the miX tape we made
While Boomers with boners gallivant and escapade.
Sometimes I really do want to sink the blade,
but then I kneel down at the pew to reconcile my hate
that I need to eXplicate; while the tech barrons


                     dope blood rejuvenate
 
prepare to upload minds to a Silicon slice of heaven
while their cryogenic brain freeze farts
slurping bone broth health slushees from the 7-Eleven
in a stockyard bid to hold onto youth and power
    but the flower of your hour has passed
as have the hippies and the grass they pass
as even the youngest of X pass into midlife crisis

                 this too shall pass
 
but that doesn’t make us any less strapped for cash
while the big boom booms hold onto real estate
at least its only notional wealth, I seek a higher template


& so look to the eXemplars & so look to the templars.

The new culture in the crack of the old takes time to gestate
     germinate the wild dandelion weeds spreading seeds
    
          adaptable and invasive
 
in the face of mothers & fathers eating their young like cannibals.

Yet we brought you hip hop and trip hop and punk, it was so delectable
         but time zoomers right over us, so feral and ephemeral.
         This age pivots on its axial so radiant. Slipping into decline
                             at an ever tilting gradient.
It’s time to fleX, so don’t jinX us with your aXioms
though latch key, skipped over, we take our lot to the maXimum.


Dropping mail art in the post boX like we did before the Internet
when it crashes look to us and we will find the alternet
routes through communication space
 hosting shows that are all ages
straight edge X on hands again
while the machine burns
and our hate against it rages.

Did you ever hear about the hobo, Boxcar Clayton Jones?
He lied, cheated, and stole his way, across the interzones.
Once he was a stockbroker, or so the old stories say,
hated life on Wall Street and threw it all, shirt and tie, away.

He met his wife while hunting snipes on the streets of Chicago,
they shared a smoke and a toke, as she strummed her old banjo;
she’d just escaped the psych ward, wore a jacket that was straight,
said, “psychiatry is a racket, man. Me, they never will sedate.”

They hopped a train to the far out west, to live life in the sun,
and since that day have never strayed, have lived their life as one.
They made love in the orange groves, and picked Humboldt County weed,
sleeping underneath the burning stars in that far off land of the free.

One day he went to the pawn shop, to swipe her a ring of silver,
and when he slipped it on her finger, she broke out in goose bump shivers.
They were wed by a drunken preacher, one they met on a spellbound train,
who said that he was hellbound—preaching had only caused him pain.

In Chattanooga they got off the rails, to see what fortune had in store,
and there they met the Buddha of the south, in a shack on a dirt floor.
He was a sadhu from the holler, who found enlightenment on moonshine,
and folks came from all around to seek white lightning at his shrine.

Boxcar Clayton took a swig when the communion jug was passed around,
and felt the senses of his spirit tug when he heard the whistle sound;
outside the long iron horse was gathering up its coal black steam:
it was time to ditch this two-bit town and see if they could hitch a dream.

Now Clatyon Jones, he was not a rich man, he left all his money behind,
but he loved his wife and the clack of the track, and despised the daily grind,
so they road along the interzones from Kalamazoo to Poughkeepsie,
from the North to the South, to the West from the East, up and down the Mason Dixie.

​And when their bones got too tired to travel any further, or very far,
they settled themselves down on the Ohio river in a rusted out boxcar.

On the other side of the mountain, in a spot so desperate and wild,
there lived a lady with long black hair, who was kindling a child.
There was nothing in the cold dark shack except a bed she’d made of leaves,
and she cried herself to sleep at night wiping tears upon her sleeve.

The man who’d filled her up with seed, he’d left her there alone,
and went back out into the old cruel world to try and make his bones.
He would love to see her dressed up, in pretty clothes oh so fine,
but he couldn’t even afford a rose, nor a bottle of drugstore wine.

His only job had been as a garbage man who made the morning rounds,
his only friend in the world a lonesome braying hound.
He scraped a few dollars for the bar, to try and forget his plight,
it warmed his belly from the chill outside but gave his mind no respite.

Back in the shack with a panic attack his lady was going wiggedy-wack,
afraid the dream of her life was a train slamming into a dead end track.
So she crept down off the mountain and she made her way into town,
looking for her man, and when she found him, he was dressed like a flipping clown.

He had seen the circus poster scabbing off the timber of the telegraph pole,
thought he might as well join, if only to fulfill the terms of his parole:
for he had once robbed a man just for kicks, outside the five and dime,
and she had a thing for bad boys, it made her hot to know he’d done time.

People say the road is no place for having kids and growing a family tree,
and people say if you fall in love with a rambling rover you will never be free,
but the tattooed ladies took her in, and the gypsy queen read her sweaty palm,
and in the chaos of the freakshow life, she found her center of calm.

​So they traveled inside a trailer and heard people call them carnie trash,
and made due with what the world gave them, never quite flush with cash.
Their baby girl was born under the big top, under the great plains open sky,
and they were a freaky folk family, until they met their sweet bye and bye.

My name is Freddy Fiver and I live all alone
kicked back, chilled out, hurried as a stone.
You’ll find me up north, in the city of Detroit
living by my wits in a squat quite adroit.

My house it was empty for many a year
except for the rats who moved in without fear
the roof it has holes, that lets in the cold rain
but I tacked up a tarp and try not to complain.

Hurrah for Detroit city, land of the freest of free
it’s a gem in America for a squatter like me.
Don’t let out a tear, there is really no need
I’ve lived here for years without title or deed.

My jacket is all ragged and my language is foul
my life rock hardened, in the School of Knock POW!
My stuff is all scattered across the whole fucking floor
and I covered the hole with a broken down door.

What dishes I have are encrusted with grime
with the water turned off I just skip washing time
but I have cans of sardines and old cans of spam
and when I run out of them I have potted ham.

Hurrah for Detroit city land of the last hurrah
the factories moved out, folks got lost in the sprawl
when you’ve got nothing to do and nowhere to turn
come up to the city where it is a pleasure to burn.

How happy I am when I crawl into my patchwork sack
and the voices start spinning cuz my heads outta whack
and the big cockroaches who are devoid of all shame
crawl up to my fire bucket to get close to the flame.

The tiny little bed bugs have covered me with pores
so when I scratch and I itch pus out of me pours.
A large spider in the corner stares and spins its crazy web
but its not a bad life for poor me, not at all for a pleb.

So hurrah for Detroit city when the polar vortex descends
may the good times return, we can always pretend.
How happy I am in this suburb deserted
for the freaks on the streets with who I have flirted.
There is no job, no money, no police I do swear.
I make friends with coyotes, await the return of the bear.

Here I am happy and here I must stay
ain’t nothing else for me, so I won’t go away.

So come up to Detroit where there’s a home for you all
it’s a safe place to be amid the Empire’s fall.
No need to go elsewhere when you can squat here for free
and make a life in the rubble of Detroit city.

Please don’t let troubles brew in your mind
you can come do your thing and let it unwind
just stick to your squat and guard it ‘gainst scrappers
hang out on the block with the MC’s and rappers.

It will be a city of music to Detroit’s dying day
so come rave in the streets til your toothless and gray.

​“May I take your order?”

Beef crumbled in the taco
shipped from south of the border.

“Biggie size the fries,”

“What do you want to drink with that?”

Outside the Waco compound
guns held waiting for rat-a-tat-tat-tat.

Cars pull into the drive thru
around the block cops respond to drive by
the fries are hot, covered in salt.

Across the street, at his ex-girlfriends house
just out of the pen, a guy gets re-arrested for assault.

The line is filling up around the burger shack
there is a man in the bathroom shooting up smack.
The manager grabs the Narcan, this happens every day
a schizophrenic drinks endless coffees
talking to himself, praying the voices away.

The computer system goes down, ransomware attack
the burger orders can’t be placed, horns honking
people lose patience, composure and grace
blunt smoke is wafting out the back of a Cadillac,
from the way that its rocking, people inside bonking.
One honked horn too many as tensions escalate
a newsflash on the cellphone says the burger lettuce
is doused in glyphosate. “Let us eat, let us feast,”
people start to scream. Visions of special sauce
(Catalina mixed with ranch) explode in a wet dream.

Without cash no one can pay the bill at the window
civil society erodes because of one broken gizmo.
Outside the dumpster smells like chicken grease
and an old racoon nibbles on cold buffalo wings
the fry cook sneaks outside, takes a few hits from a vape
dreaming of another life, from fast food he must escape.

The chaos of the world is only one gunked up burger away
as the golden arches collapse and fall, true colors on display.

The chaos of the world is only one missing chicken nugget.
How to restore the order, once taken, to fix the hole and plug it?