Analysis of Tails From The Lobotomy” Part 2: 'Black Friday

And If only I could have brought more
passion
into my life
I would have been a scholar;
one who could freely expedite
without having to be seen going in and out of vanities
due to ultra shyness or pretension or the like;
a holy savant full of primeval Faustian transcript
topped off with a slip of Freudian delight.

From ancient civilizations to lost encrypted archetypes,
I'd be chock full of semantic sermons
parting magic curtains down Mesopotamian corridors
stuffed with colloquials inside a closetful of
scientific prototypes.
Full of intrigue, quotation, equation, revelation:
sewing Archimedic verses into conversational threads
down past cosmic avenues strewn with aggregates
of star shine
spilling over into yards the scatterings of useless debris
now languishing in corrosions the cosmetic accumulations of
death
by coronary kismet and evolutionary decree.

Whether carbon-dated keepsakes or carbonated garbage
these artificial blood worms connect us to
remainders of the past,
(though usually only after a good deal of thoughtlessness
and considerable delay rather begrudgingly)
gone the way of Dickens, Houdini and Lady Chatterley
to the clink and clang and clutter of our heart's dismay.
Or is it just…
the semi-comedic rust
of some wistful antique irony
in their being spared the carnage and decay
from cold blooded executions
or built-in obsolescence
that seem so fundamentally and financially
so compulsory these days;
(or as if being saved out of compassion,
if only temporarily,
from our unlikely attempt to escape
unscathed
the scars and ravages that help define, shape and remake
the soliloquy
of our own personal identity) .

Along sparkling boulevards fraught with
commerce and decorum,
past mansions lining parkways showing off their stealth,
down past private drives where walls are erected accordingly by
wealth
as per the scores you have on your credit card account
or by some mysterious number of quotas
or masonry degrees
that may just determine
in the end
the status of your health.
Past the malts, the breweries, the ballperks and the umporiums;
past the matadors, the metaphors, the predators and the
janitoriums;
past the skunks, the shrinks, the skin heads,
the copperheads,
the gravel pits, the armpits, the snake pits,
the grave pits and the sanitoriums.
Past the jackals, the junkies, the vendors, the vandals,
the diners, the Shriners, the rhinos, the albinos,
the winos, the chrysanthemums,
the tarantulas and the evangelists
running loose through the aisles in our auditoriums
to where the unrestricted uncertifiables breed and live
and hide;
down to where the polymorphous attractions
cultivate and thrive
feverishly working to dismantle the values of your
super ego
and keep it hid
from the appetitions of your ego
and from the cravings of your id
(and the internet is 'instant karma'
for those with a penchant for such things) .
And with it, a brand new gawk and geek show has dutifully arrived:
the headless waiter, the thin man,
the tattoo-less grandmother,
the well behaved child,
the crying head of lettuce, a frugal alien,
a department manager.
Did Wal-Mart kill the once vaunted mom & pop carnivals
to keep the oddities and curiosities alive?

And far beyond the chemistry
of artificially manicured lawns on public display,
at the utmost center of our galaxy
on the outskirt fringes of our most profound and most unfathomable
leap of unearthly incomprehension,
at the far reaches of any outpost that occupies
a nearby McDonalds
lies an unknown darkness,
a downtown,
an unforgiving and sinister dark alley
whose event horizon is bustling and brimming over
with inexhaustible slum and excitement.
'SLUM & EXCITEMENT! ! ! '
Full of vacancy, vagrancy, impoverishment, abandonment,
disillusionment,
disentitlement,
and the fine arts of hi tech, low rent and cheap lust,
all arcing out of control
on streets where hunger and the roomlessness reside
round arteries alongside remissions
where the penniless patrol the sanctimonious offices
of the survey and study commissions
(who themselves are being registered and audited
and analyzed and researched and reconfigured
in compliance with their own demographic
ulterior findings and omissions)
from where advertising media moguls decide
the fortunes and colors of our I-pads, coffee pots and headphones
right up until the very day they've rattled, burnt out and died,
(and starting even before the time
they've actually been slated to have arrived) .
There the artifacts dance and jive with the figures,
to be signed, consigned, co-signed and transported
by manufacturers
at the discretion of articles and editors
and bloggers
and their financial benefactors
who do their darndest to try and keep us all aware,
preoccupied and alive,
to a thousand different venues and locations along thoroughfares
leading promptly and directly to the very heart and soul
of our voracious all-consuming self-ingratiating carnivorous desires,
and once consummated with the o.k. good housekeeping seal of
approval,
are then shipped off for the good of our own consumerism and
vanity fare
in commiserating detail:
roads leading to highways leading to causeways
leading to driveways leading to hallways
leading to stairways leading to stairwells
leading to mausoleums
leading to the unknown.
Past crowded fears and lonely courts of pall
the human petition gloats merrily along
as it flubs and fleas and estuaries in and out of its
current transition
somewhere between where the blood of life
meets the sea
and where the flush of humanity tries to reconnect it's waistline
to the bone
leaving the drowning and the fledgling in their wake,
asleep, in stasis, infundibulum
or rationalizing their own security
safe behind some innocuous looking picture on the wall
or beneath some esoteric floor board in another room inside their
vault
they call their home
until the alarm clock rings with the warmth
of mutual affection
as if Dali never had it so good.
For the price you pay for convention,
you get to live a life in a way your ancestors
NEVER would;
and where it's just another day of conversation
and convection
about some newfangled mystery
or some new e-commerce intervention
or of some confounded new species having just been recently
discovered,
or of how those endangered missing links might some day
need to be reevaluated and re-engineered
for bio-reinvention
beneath the internet curlings of the sea,
between the call of the wild
and some learned inhibited behavior
over some tortured social convention
twixt the love of life and the fear of our natural nature
between you and me.

And down even further past Polemic Highway
where the State of Medication first spills over
into Bulimia,
deft causes fill the vacancies with popcorn,
pepper pot and hot air.
Streets once filled with anger and laughter
now raise questions about the ultimate disaster,
or scoff with scorn and bar chasm
at the apprehension of the coming of the unknown;
and while believers attend their masses,
pearly gossip funds the masses
lining up to catch a glimpse of
'once upon an evermore, '
waiting for the clickity clack of the serpent's carriage
to appear from out the kingdom
to hit the cobblestone once more;
and yet another day rumbles by for both the ungodly rich
and the 'getting poorer by the hour' ghastly poor.

Outside the cemetery grounds
the streets are milled with coffee.
Short ribs, speeches and Major Confetti continue
to fill the air
as they feed and fertilize the amusing and somewhat controllable
but ruly crowd,
while status electricity from dead rodents and radiation
condescends upon the fairgrounds:
gamma bears, alfalfa waves, gummy shoes
and triple A-rated
ice cream mega head cone cornucopias
begin to assemble
and cheer out loud,
all busy gathering in crematorium
to the passing of our short-lived, small town way of life
as manta rays and men of war
begin to congregate and encroach around the square;
all convoluting into one big
mass-induced,
ceremoniously-healing,
self-embracing,
rally-intensified
small town cerebellum way of life,
a necessary form of voodoo
to help restrain and vilify the story
of our long and hard-ingested hemorrhaging
worldwide lobotomy;
the latest reincarnation of Pax Americana in our time:
'Animus emeritus Americanus.'
'Ominous victorious luminous.'
'In verbatim e pluribus unum Barnum & Bailey
la Cosa Nostra Illuminati! '
or is filled with the commemorating smells of
memories on main streets
hung over from the flash and fright and thrust
of centuries old incendiary cordite
now parading down past street lights, flags unfurled;
lighting up some shady shadowy figure of influence
and promiscuity
full of mystery and suspense and intrigue,
underneath a satin silhouetted lamppost
that only adds to the overall fatigue:
the striking of a match, a trench coat, a prominent chin,
arched eyebrows, a ferreted stance,
a furtive glance, a tilted fedora
that goes with a shifty, shapeless,
featureless, faceless chagrin.
A secret shopper, perhaps?
Hardly.
But yet again little is offered
to the cripple sitting slouched
beside a beggar's cup he's holding onto
hopes and dreams once vouched for
made of tin.
Signs of the notoriously vein and intrepidly victorious
in all of us have come together
not to bury the Mayor but to save him
from the cigar smoking poster child
being touted on a pedestal that he is,
holding onto 'his' small town way of life,
onto 'his' political pride, predominance, prestige
and stiff upper chin,
while a whole new generation of small town fathers
(as well as mothers)
are busily laying siege to our modern-day enveloping
statutory Wall Street apocalypse.
And the band plays on…
There, a figure looking as plump as a placard-full of
syrupy canned speeches
stumps the parade,
and with that, the ever changing, ever charging
political charade begins.
The Mayor himself throws out the first pitch:
a convincing subscription for conviction.
Or was that,
an evincing conniption for eviction,
casting light on the fate of enumerating species,
swallowing swords through a majestic patriotic ring
full of national and international local domestic
household fire and fury,
and illusion
and delusion
and mysticism
and ventriloquism
and witchcraft
and deception
and deliverance
and dominoes
and…
feces;
or illuminating pot holes accumulating dust
once woven into stirring and compelling causes
leading to once historic, courageous fights
or of fortunes made from mineral rights
or from some other wooden, witty, wanton,
wily worldly noises
with ever so insightful commentary
down through the ages over ghostly candle lights.

Oh…
and if only I could have brought more compassion
into my life.