Part 1: “Deadlines Are Looming”

Who grew the Kentucky bluegrass in the front yard,
Where the trees shade the 4pm sunlight in summer?
The neighborhood is lazy on this day, or students are,
Filling deadlines while their fathers look over them.

The city’s in the distance while the charter bus
Runs through the suburb, being the only noise and/or disturbance
Except for a girl and her band – a boy on lead vox and guitar
And they’re all hidden on their zoion, their yearly reminder.

Deadlines are looming throughout the city.
It’ll be one more day until they all go to another world,
Far away from the corrupt Earth with flaming skeletons.

They don’t support that their semi-pastoral life is to end
When the developing Gestapo barge to make an unruly strip mall
Anchored by a Wal-Mart and a Utopian
With fast-food restaurants smashed into their homes.


Yet, they sing about the dangers and turmoils of
Urban construction, with promises that it’ll end up just like
Some mall in Chicago. How can suburban idyllicness survive?
The girl’s band reminds us all of our fate.

Yet as they pack up their instruments to go to a party which is down the block next to Vernon’s old house they’re in suspension of belief in their lyrics the words they prophesize and meanwhile at the lead’s house his family unlike him and his hand have a party they don’t expect the door to come down and the shaven men to order them to transport

The band sees the neighborhood plowed down
Instead of having a reclamation of objects
The soldiers tell them to go
The leader sees other transports there

“The car is unhealthy,” shouts someone dying
The solder removes his bayonet from the man’s heard
Leaving his body to char in plumbic smoke and fallout.
The leader watches his brother’s teeth rot from the safety of the transport.


Part 2: “The Deal”

What is this scary urbanite place?
I have heard people call this a concrete jungle.
I’m more used to the suburbs and their serenity
Where minors’ sons kill inventively under alter egos.

There’s this man on the corner in a blue collared shirt.
He’s standing up on the corner hawking a strange spatula.
It’s metal and divided into five compartments full of ground chuck.
He announces its name as what I expected to hear.

I went to the counter and got out my Citibank card
So I could satisfy what this man was selling.
He handed me his item of interest
And to my surprise, it actually worked.

As I walked away with my new item of interest
More and more people ran to the prophet’s counter.
He could stop the destruction of the suburbs with his silvery tongue
So I walked back to him, fighting the fanatics.

I stand next to my friend in his blue-collar Lacoste shirt
Watching the prophet hawk more and more items to potential buyers
He brought out six or eight tubes of some magical green substance, stretched his hand
And said to me, “Carl, come in. I want to make a proposal.”

What do you want?
When do you want it?
How can we get it?
How do we fight it?

Why do I have all of these TV items?
Why do I have all of these trinkets?
Why do I feel like I’m de-evolving into lesser?
Why do I feel like I’m not so smart?

Maybe it’s the government that’s doing this!
Maybe it’s my mind in this world! Maybe! Just maybe! I can get this out of my head!


Part 3: “Griots and Street Performances”

I remember a story my mother told me
I remember a story a stranger told me
While I was in my bed
While I was at a Shoney’s

It started in a jungle long ago
It started at a Shoney’s I ate
With a hunter killing monkeys and tigers
With a cook undercooking the Big Boy Burger

What is with these unrelated stories from griots and street performances?

The hunter was spared by the Mormon tribe
The chef came to my with a butcher knife
And he bathed in their cooking pot
And he cut off my shoe laces

As the tribe added in the A1 steak sauces
As I ran away into Gatlinburg
He felt a bit more sleepier
My shoes felt loose so I took them off

The hunter shot a Saturday’s warrior
I ran into a Rhythm Section music store
And dumped his carcass into the pot
And went on my knees at the sight of Alice

Saturday’s warrior!

After the pot was up to a boil
After Alice shifted away
The hunter had a bite of primate pork
I chased her through the mall

He developed instantaneous cannibal thoughts
Alice was tired so she hid in a store front
And he saw a girl in the back room
And I saw a stranger approach the girl

The Hunter took her off
I saw the stranger prep her for torture
And spread a feather all across her
And was turned on by her lovely movement

The Hunter’s mind was blank; he saw a light
I shot the stranger with harpoon
And the girl ran from her suitor, happy
I chased her to the phone booth!