The Next Beat

Sangria Maria, don’t know no Jazz

she discovered Bossa Nova at Starbucks one day

don’t like no mondays cause you know Saturdays

are for sundaes like whip cream and fluff. Read the

papers about that stuff. This is up and that’s down

obituaries and the funnies and some coupons for the buffet.

A smorgasbord of taste, smell and sound.

Dig that young cat with the mascara and the hair covering

his eyes. Despondent resident of a subdivision and momma

always had food in the pot. He learned them power chords

gonna make a band. Don’t want no conventional stuff.

Full of angst and anger about all kinds of stuff. You know

them southern California kids was so mad once upon a time

with their Punk Rock. Now they got the perfect life, a mortgage, kids

and shapely wife. Crack open the wine they bought at Napa for the

company. Jim is a swell guy and a great golfer. He might want to swap

wives for the night. No need to trade lives. Got the same cars, same homes,

same distant children with everything they used to have when there was real Punk Rock.

Drop the needle on some Black Flag or Fear and call your old girl on your momma’s

rotary phone. Momma was always there when daddy was busy.

Daddy was a Mason and an Elk, Republican and Presbyterian and a little Welsh.

You ain’t gonna get old and you ain’t gonna die but if you do, they got it all picked out for you.

Next to nice trees by some shade not far from the interstate and a billboard about 4Gs.

Because in the circle of life, they ain’t no corners.

Just the things that go around and come around. No real forest, hill, groves

or real parks except for the industrial ones with their industrial strength. More caffeine, less stress, less pressure,

more leisure more comfortable shoes and a numbers when you sleep next to Sangria Maria after Tapas Tuesday

with Swell Jim and his wife in this comfortable life in that tract home in every town in every state… No matter the state you’re

in.