never ending punchline drums
two red markers
hour to complete
marker stink muted sounds disgrace
yellow bow tie unravels
passenger seat night
hummed quietly alive
ghost version of earth
dead lamp grew arms and legs
lurched down the street
houses painted safe colors
smoking rare Marlboro light
moving real slow like glaciers
space and sunsets wanted
spin to make myself as lost as possible
I don't see anything gorgeous about crackerbox houses
cracker jack prizes
fight in peace
headless mannequins painted blue
on shattered mirrors
sometimes the house would sing
surrender to normalcy
voice of nature heard in black silence
of hostage situation levels
capitalist compound
zonedout starlet unconscious in the sun
passing strip malls and
erasing the day to put something better in its place
skin the colour of a dirty penny
I told the soap dish in my bathroom
hard surfaces around the cliché
our solitude was linked
I wasn't exactly sure what more was
force something worse to take its place
toys litter unmowed lawns like bright dead animals
stare at power line smoke creep humid afternoon
a knot that could never be untied
skeletons of mansions
wasn't age in his voice
grove of trees to distract myself
wondered if this sort of thing happened all the time
if every few weeks somewhere in the world
bunch of bullshit to focus attention on the small things
I tried affirming nothing at all no man.
evening settled I like the scandalous.
I think we all do lip service.
When I was a kid, Crayola sent me a free colouring book,
because I told them the colour green on the back of the box
was the same shade as the black.
___
The Writer: Jason Bartlett
The Photographer: Anonymous By Request
