But wait--

There’s more.

Jerk eyes open
Verizon wireless theme song in
digital slap

base operations across from
Zeek’s pizza glowering billboard
skating by on borrowed

internet, a sarlac pit
of creased envelopes,
a deletery of e-mails.

That is not all;

Past the white windowless van with the electrician’s name on it, past the backward baseball caps and scarred arms leaning over the freight trains, past the giant clock by the lamp store, past the testicles all bouncing in green, and the ghosts of brewers, all coming back with hooks for hands, there is another smoking hole in a wall, or the asphalt, cigarettes or asteroids.

That could be all,
but holiday specials forbid it. Towerless searses forbid it. Postal delivery drivers, presumably werewolves, forbid it with pork between their fangs. ALSO! Veteran vetrinarians, presumably evil mermaids, for-fucking-bid it. So there is more—

--a swift mop up
before leaving work,
a death threat bus 

stop, running on borrowed

fares, a deathstar
with its lights on,

but wait--

history is written by the man who stays acquainted with the thug who has the biggest sword.

while I definitely have my polititcal leanings (more on that in a few days) and definitely (can) enjoy the joust-y nature of debate, there are ways that, "this is not a game of battleship" notwithstanding, the whole Foreign Policy Debate just made me think about this song:
it doesn't take a lot to make me think of a fotl song, granted, but "civilized people don't fuck bears" notwithstanding, this is one of the angrier, more righteously on-point pieces they've done about world or personal affairs.

Civic Duty

1. as much as it pains him to say, after a long history of confidence, he does not know who to vote for in the next election. every single speech sounds like a commercial. 2. she knows a lot, has always, knows whom she'll support, supports who she knows, has always known, will always know, is happy to tell you. 3. It doesn't matter much, the peanut butter sandwiches will taste the same as he drips blackberry jelly on his snap-down shirt and wonders why no one takes him seriously. 4. with face scrunched, head shaking, he punches out a ballot, fills in a card, hits the screen. all at once, because no one's sure how this works any more. 5. So now this reporter wants to know will you vote? With hindsight, with hindsight, with hindsight.

So much for Orthodoxy:

And it came to pass that years after the words had stopped being heeded the united council of Rev. Graham and the Isaacs decided on a newer, sleeker, more relevant word, and thus, out of such academic turmoil was born This Is Why We Can't Have Nice Things: New Revised Standard Edtition
The Epistles:

1.Taylor
2.Drive
3.In Beth's Cafe
4.Dried Insect, Collected
5.Swim Team
6.Pink Laces and Kierkegaard
8.For Chad and Jason
9.Drinking Age
10.Performance Heartbreak
11.Pack Mentality and Your Tenderloins
12.This is Why We Can't Have Nice Things
13.The Future According to Johnny Quest
14.We Are the Weird Cousins
15.Caleb Barber Loses His Teeth to Meth
16.Deliberate
17.Homemade Cape
18.Drag and Save
19.The Day After Thanksgiving
20.Just As Well, She Said
21.Like Taking Communion
22.Somewhere in Colorado

The rest are destined for apocryphal status.