Since You’ve Been Gone
After your murder, the week before Lady Diana’s crash, I called you. It
didn’t dawn on me, in a 24 hour news cycle, that being dead meant you
wouldn’t pick up. For a long time afterwards I’d lie awake at night, a record
million shares trading hands on the NYSE, and staring at the ceiling,
think the Republicans have gained control of the House. I was afraid to
sleep alone. The gourmet ghetto’s taken over Berkeley and when I do fall
asleep, Steve Jobs came back to Apple. I leave all the lights on and
Clinton’s been re-elected, despite what the meaning of the word ‘is’, is.
One night, listening to Laura Nyro, dead too, I find one of your blond hairs
on my pillowcase. Jimmy Carter’s won the Nobel Peace Prize. I imagine
you’re here. Bush vs. Gore. Only you’re not. Enron and global warming.
You’ve grown much bigger than this room. 9/11 and anthrax. I wear your
navy blue hooded sweatshirt, OMG and WTF, that smells like you, Amazon
and Columbine, to bed every night. The polar ice caps are melting and
your family doesn’t invite me to the funeral. I go anyway, the Red Sox won
the series, anything is possible. When they’re not looking, Dick Cheney’s
running the White House, I stuff a fist full of your ashes, Nina Simone,
Allen Ginsberg, William Burroughs, in my pocket⎯all gone. Later I spread
them off the Cape while the US invades Iraq and a gust of wind, the Great
Pacific Ocean Garbage Patch, blows them back to my face.
I turn the lights out eventually and start having sex, Netflix and Facebook,
with men that mean nothing; Pope John Paul II apologizes in my one
room apartment and Saddam Hussein’s found in a hole overlooking the
Brooklyn Queens Expressway. “Mission Accomplished.” You’d be happy
to know Rachel Maddow hearts Gay marriage and I started therapy.
Shock and awe, yes, it’s been a long time coming. While Wall Street
brought on a housing crisis we lost Paul Newman and Michael
Jackson. I’m still pretty good at making brilliant mistakes, Titanic like,
think the ship, not the movie and a bit of a flight risk, shoe bombs and
airport x-rays. If a new circus came to town, WikiLeaks, the Haitian
earthquake, there’s no guarantee that I wouldn’t run away with it. We’ve
got a Black guy as president now and we’re all using gadgets. Yet
despite all this, Deepwater Horizon and Osama bin Laden, I’m finally
getting around to seeing, Sarah Palin and Tina Fey, the beauty in
everything. The Egyptian people have just toppled a dictator and
wouldn’t you know, the last natural born ibex, yes, a female named
Celia, oh, girl, was found dead, girl, girl, girl, apparently killed by a falling tree.
After your murder, the week before Lady Diana’s crash, I called you. It
didn’t dawn on me, in a 24 hour news cycle, that being dead meant you
wouldn’t pick up. For a long time afterwards I’d lie awake at night, a record
million shares trading hands on the NYSE, and staring at the ceiling,
think the Republicans have gained control of the House. I was afraid to
sleep alone. The gourmet ghetto’s taken over Berkeley and when I do fall
asleep, Steve Jobs came back to Apple. I leave all the lights on and
Clinton’s been re-elected, despite what the meaning of the word ‘is’, is.
One night, listening to Laura Nyro, dead too, I find one of your blond hairs
on my pillowcase. Jimmy Carter’s won the Nobel Peace Prize. I imagine
you’re here. Bush vs. Gore. Only you’re not. Enron and global warming.
You’ve grown much bigger than this room. 9/11 and anthrax. I wear your
navy blue hooded sweatshirt, OMG and WTF, that smells like you, Amazon
and Columbine, to bed every night. The polar ice caps are melting and
your family doesn’t invite me to the funeral. I go anyway, the Red Sox won
the series, anything is possible. When they’re not looking, Dick Cheney’s
running the White House, I stuff a fist full of your ashes, Nina Simone,
Allen Ginsberg, William Burroughs, in my pocket⎯all gone. Later I spread
them off the Cape while the US invades Iraq and a gust of wind, the Great
Pacific Ocean Garbage Patch, blows them back to my face.
I turn the lights out eventually and start having sex, Netflix and Facebook,
with men that mean nothing; Pope John Paul II apologizes in my one
room apartment and Saddam Hussein’s found in a hole overlooking the
Brooklyn Queens Expressway. “Mission Accomplished.” You’d be happy
to know Rachel Maddow hearts Gay marriage and I started therapy.
Shock and awe, yes, it’s been a long time coming. While Wall Street
brought on a housing crisis we lost Paul Newman and Michael
Jackson. I’m still pretty good at making brilliant mistakes, Titanic like,
think the ship, not the movie and a bit of a flight risk, shoe bombs and
airport x-rays. If a new circus came to town, WikiLeaks, the Haitian
earthquake, there’s no guarantee that I wouldn’t run away with it. We’ve
got a Black guy as president now and we’re all using gadgets. Yet
despite all this, Deepwater Horizon and Osama bin Laden, I’m finally
getting around to seeing, Sarah Palin and Tina Fey, the beauty in
everything. The Egyptian people have just toppled a dictator and
wouldn’t you know, the last natural born ibex, yes, a female named
Celia, oh, girl, was found dead, girl, girl, girl, apparently killed by a falling tree.