The American Nightmare

Do you know the worn progress under the Hollywood Sign?

Do you know of the exit?

Have you been trapped in a self-created thrall?

Have you been heard yet

& are you a liar?

Let's invent a new god, a new myth for the coming age

Celebrate bloopers from aging old actors

(a fart sound followed canned laughter)

For seven days

& seven nights

I walked alone

fasting

Weak from hunger

All done to awaken the monster within

Sunday morning comes

Cartoons

danced in my head

like some god dam mad dog

chasing his tail in circles

Are you really watching what's on the television?

Or is the television eye watching you?

How do you live life knowing that your closest friends are

characters seen upon the television screen?

Your babysitter, your teacher, and your friends

are all seen on the same box which stares at you coldly

like some ancient, starving satanic beast

Looking back

T.V. has become a tomb

Tomes of ghostly images

Dancing and singing in black and white

The dead are performing again tonight

on your television screen

Reminding us of what was &

what will be

A dying soldier grasps a photo of his mother

A bomb destroys an old Baptist church

Young children stare wide eyed at some dead clown

as a black politician pats a new born baby on its head

Waving hands in a silent applause

Mad cackling Laughter

A Death Letter

The End

Those who Laugh at Death

Those who cheat it

Those who're sorry

Welcome to the American Nightmare

Where jesters fight

to be heard

out there on the airwaves

in search of fame

in the night

leaving a fresh, puss full

scar &

Left for dead on the Universal Highway

Maggots &

Slugs

The worms &

the bugs

feed upon you & your

stone cold death

sucking you dry

like some starving leech

as you lie on the side of the road

on a hot summers day kill

of The American Nightmare

The maggots &

the faggots

cruise the streets

looking for another

better high &

feed upon the land

sucking you dry &

bringing disease, decay

like a rolling, stoned cold death girl

like a rotting road kill

like this The American Nightmare

Words lie dead on the ground like some bleeding possum

that dragged itself to the curb to die

Alone

to wallow in its pain

We're born to this world alone

& cold

and die the same