Mix

There are too many people
sleeping under the boardwalk
and buying food
with the small amount of money
they make on good days
playing blackjack
or by throwing a couple dollars
at a long shot.

Waking the latent barbarians
frozen in ice still waiting
to cut open anyone trying
to organize as something
that keeps everything in line.
Emails from the office
giving every excuse they can
to just not pay you
when they know its true
that they would be a dry fish
without the work you do.

We bend metal rings
around the ankles of parrots
to show we own them,
and we cut the most
important feathers off of them.
We do this to each other too
and we pretend there’s
something different
in the mix of it
since we speak just so politely
saying please and thank you kindly
for your life that you get only one
to walk along.

Then we record the songs
and sell them back
on C.D.s labeled bonus tracks,
for extra time to sit and worry
in the car.
Just another pair of eyes
suspended over wheels
that never take you far at all
in fact they’re motionless,
and melting in the sunlight.