A machine can put a needle through fabric
just like we can but without
the need for clumsy hands that get so tangled
in the way when we are working, but unable
to make progress.
America is a t-shirt quilt who’s graphics
all are different bad ideas.
Anyone who hears that and their first
thought is there are no bad ideas
when it comes to America haven’t lived
here long or opened up the history.
Of course I know that’s my history too
even you in your uncertain point
beyond me in the future looking back
at this is now somehow a part of it.
Dropping atom bombs like cold remarks
and pretending it was necessary stands
behind us like a shadow that’s disfigured
by the architecture waiting to be occupied
and kept alive by the desperate minds
who need it to survive.
I’ve always felt safer in the open
where the fields stretch out forever
and the wild things eat grass like it is candy.
Although that’s the oldest t-shirt of them all,
and that nostalgia is like Novocain
so potent in its cloudiness the waiting room
goes numb before it knows it could have run
away, and still remembered what it felt like
to be uncovered and receptive to the unlimited
potential of the continent.
Who hasn’t wished for a new world
at least once before they realized
there was no land out there someone
hadn’t found before?
Teleporting Typewriter 