Soapbox (Pulled From The Trash In Front Of A Starbucks)

I’m not one to panhandle

My foggy ideas

Or preach to anybody

As if I had anything of any merit

Or importance to say.

I won’t be holding up handmade signs

Scrawled in water-based soy ink

On re-purposed cardboard

At any of the street corners

Or in front of any government buildings

Cause I just can’t spare the time

Or the dime.

It’s been awhile

Since I’ve been at a peaceful demonstration

And I only went to smoke

Other people’s weed

And meet hot chicks.

So sometimes

I get trapped in my own head

And wander the streets at night

While normal people 

Watch multiple TV’s 

In every house that I pass.

They flip between ‘Tan Mom’

And a 1/2 hour profile of someone

That’s addicted to eating kitchen cleanser.

What happened to

Mozart or Bartok

Or reading a book?

Dishwashers were invented

To give us more time to do other things.

Family Time 

Is now sponsored

And measured in Nielsen ratings.

Daylight Savings

Once meant 

That kids stayed outside later

Playing tag and manhunt.

Whatever happened to intimacy?

Moving shadows in the windows

Sounds escaping

Intended for no one to hear.

Philosophers, musicians

Artists

And great spiritual men

Were once immortalized

In chiseled stone

Often by teams of slave labor

Spending their entire lives

Rendering

One likeness.

Today

They would appear in a commercial

Selling a luxury car

Daft Punk pumping as the soundtrack

Or have their publicist

Carefully decide which competing

Late night talk show

They should appear on initially.

They would be one of the first eliminated

From a 6th season major network talent show

Because they actually had talent.

Their rise and fall

Carefully edited and mockumented

On their own reality series...

Van Gogh cutting off an ear
In High Definition...