Monday, October 20, 2008

where i'm from

I am often writing new pieces or altering older ones about my hometown. This is a new rough draft. It has no mention in it about watching strippers smoke cigarettes from their vagina's. That being said, I am sick today and am going to go vomit some more stomach bile now. Cheers~!

----------------------------


i come from the land of silver sin and skin
and suburban sprawl
which bleeds onto the desert skyline
faster than the big horn sheep have disappeared
and the remaining burros who honk and scream
that they never asked to be our beasts of burden
and where did all the pi yut go?
did they fall into
all those mining pockets we have long since covered up
after we scraped every last mineral deposit from them?
their lonely ghosts merely wander the Mojave
looking for those long lost snowy ranges...

i come from a land enclosed on one side by the reddest rock mountains ever seen
a dried up oasis only remembered now in the seeds of the Joshua tree
and on the other, the hoover dam
brainchild of herbert
his concrete art deco tribute to the black canyon of the colorado river's rushing past
waters being diverted over the 112 corpses of the men
Who worked there/who died there/
the 112 who made the official list
unlike the hundreds more who just died of
- unrelated pneumonia -
if you take the word of those who signed the paychecks
the same 6 companies inc. who sent in strike breakers with
their bats and their clubs and their guns
into the shanty ragtowns where the all the men were striking from that great depressions
dam
working conditions and you know,

you can put off a strike pretty fast when you are smashing fathers heads into the ground.

These waters which have been receding year after year
Are herded in
To fuel a city
Which otherwise would not exist.

i come from a land that means the meadows,
where the only grass one can find is as artificially planted as most native women's breasts
landscaping maintained until the day came where the price for watering
was just to high to avoid the inevitability of zerascaping
much to the aesthetic disappointment of an entire city composed of relocated people
who yearned for the lush greenery of the east, or the tropical bravado of the west
but desired the tax cuts, the cheap housing and the access to 24 hour all you can eat buffets, nonetheless.

I come from a place which began as a nondespript pause on transcontinental railway/ which bloomed from organized crime/joint venture capitalism between the mafia and the mormans/
a fitting nod to our country/
the rest stopping point to California/
the Mississippi of the West/
where miss Joshepine Baker played unknowingly at first to an all white audience refusing to play to another segregated house, so the hotel grabbed two black men off the street, threw tux on them and sent her black ass back on
she never came back to our fair city and i am sure that them draining the pool after she had swam in it really didn't help the city's case very much as did forcing the entire black population into the west side shanty towns cuz - you may be good enough to get on our stages but you better not get caught on our streets - which have since been replaced with run down public housing in northlas vegas where the only businesses you can see are the liquor stores and check cashing huts and that burning egg smell, well that's the unkempt city sewers because who gives a fuck -
its not like tourists are going to head over this way.

i come from a city that is more experienced than madonna in the art form of reinvention
constantly transforming itself from one plastic invention to another imploding its perceived flaws cuz who would even bother with a chisel
and just like our virgin savior has no shame for being 100 years old and still trotting around in those short shorts bikini tops with leathered sunbaked skin,
cuz its milkshakes are still bringing those drunk boys into the yard
and even when our water supply that we have taken from other states runs out, we'll still be running here- running on the dreams of becoming rich and powerful and skinny and tan. the dreams of fame and superstardom the dreams attached in the credits of your home sex tape which hundreds of girls attempt to become the next kim kardashioan and paris hilton without the slightest ironic recognition that well, minus the trust fund, they already fucking are

the same dreams that lead kindergarten teachers to become valet parkers
that lead devout fathers to become gambling addicts
the same dreams that lead college girls to drop out and become bunnys at the new playboy club
the same dreams that led almost every dance major at my performing arts high school to pay for some abstract future by wrapping their legs as tight around those poles as their coke addictions strangled their hopes until that day came where they found themselves pregnant dropouts old at 25 who could only now get the lunch shifts at the clubs where the guys barely noticed them as they wolf down their 5$ clam and steak all you can eat specials while the girls gyrate around the fear that today's tips wont cover the cost of child care
the sames dreams that lead the most popular girl in junior high to inviting a special group over for a bulimic pizza party cuz her parents, well they, had four bathrooms in their house and try explaining the sense of that dream to an economist
because through the mathematical holes falls out
the bulimics the addicts the lovers and the dreamers.

I come from the brightest city on earth, a city that rages against its own mortality
by throwing all the lights in the sky and screaming out at the heavens, looks what i can create -
who's god now bitch!!!
and what's more american than that?

1 comment: