GENO-CIDE

(heads)

geno-cide



brown smoghaze fades into the infinite today
smothering the hills of Marin from view

dead starfish roll onto the beach in small
sick waves
another weird
dry winter


where is the lyric poet
without clear air?

we eat mushrooms & run around Point Reyes naked
the deer don’t mind us & we hear the wings of crows

breaking overhead, as we lie still in the gray grass


back in the city
we eat pizza & pass out
exhausted, having wrestled another physical day
from the death going on all around
everybody working too goddamned hard for the wrong things

we’re at the top of the seashell: the spirals going faster & faster
we’re at the top & all about to crash & even that’s no news:

what the fuck are we going to do?



(tails)

eleven convicts escaped city jail

A snitch tipped the cops that one
was holed up in a hotel downtown.

They surrounded the place, broke
down doors & windows, shot teargas

into his room: waited. He didn’t come out.
Finally they busted in only to find him sleeping.

“Didn’t the teargas bother you?” they asked.
“Not really,” he replied. “I just
thought it was a little smoggier than usual.”

We breathe the same air, convicts & I.
We have many similar convictions.


Coin of the Realm
SF, 1977