by Sydney Lance Keniston

These old Jeeps
behind the house
rotting like the dead
back into the air around me
like a vision of mid-last-century
America
Vision of me on the bus
Blue-Jeans
Blue woodsmen shirt
Kerouacking down the east-coast
Sure,
a real beat guy,
hip
Beaten
Beleaguered
Now snagged and dragged by fact
Vision to hell with it
In the me-back-of-the-bus
Stinking bus
The Jamaican next to me, his dreads on
my shoulder
Chatting about his sex life
He bangs white chicks
Hope all gone looking out the window
But hoping still
Things’ll get better when I get there
Right New York?
That great big city, the city of ‘em all, majestic
Me with my little Zen turtle around my neck
coming in on 7th Ave
But when I get there it’s all cleared out
The Jazz charges $21
The village is all French
restaurants and hipsters living off trusts
and $10 crepes I buy ‘cause I’m hungry
Clubs at Columbia are all closed
Still
here we are
Here I am
Is there really any we anymore?
Is there just me? Me and you but no we?
The first on a new century just like the first on the last,
lost
Blinded to their wanderings by the techno-wrap
around their eyes
By the awakening, by the time they realize
it’ll be too late
It’ll be all over, again
We’re the first on a new century just like the last
Even less hopeful
Even more
Lost