"look"

"look"
written as something it wasn't supposed to be by jake kilroy.

look,
we'd all love to listen to the velvet underground,
waist-deep in cool river water,
scrubbing the hymns off our chests,
burying our feet in the silky mud,
and always wishing for something better.
we'd all love to speed down the humming road,
sucking in dusty air and coughing up pollen,
barreling our way across the promised land,
gasping for breaths in between stereo poems,
just as the junkyard artists did long before us,
as we strike gold in our hearts and keep digging,
slinking in and out of parlors for magic shows,
wasted enough to be far gone, but not quite lost.
yes, we'd all love to write home about bar fights
and spring flings and the riot we laughed
sometime after midnight when we thought
we were home for good, if only for an instant.
but this country, this spray paint mural of highways,
this magnificent land of whistlers and charmers,
this palm reading of a closed fist in the crowd,
it needs dynamite to move, twisting and shaking
on the dance floor in its best effort to stay in line,
so it can use sunsets as flashlights for nights
when no living soul gets eight hours of sleep.
but until we're moving money like dirty cops,
i say we've got another stretch of homeland to fix.
so you can tell the young jack keruoac gangsters
that we'll be sipping the pleasantries soon enough;
we just need to tie up our shoes and a few loose ends,
but then we're gunning for the door and a future
you couldn't lose in a card game if you tried.