Empty Is the New Black

The day crumbles and fails
and we're half-assed Christs
nailed to the cross
of whatever's left of things.

We drink beer in the Tenderloin
grimace beneath the sun.

The Great American Loneliness
drips from the walls of the sad hotels
where the poets fuck and die

and the latest thing
we thought would save us

we burnt through it in a day.

There's a guy with a boombox
strapped to his bicycle playing
music from another world

where you could still imagine
something other than
the dreariness at hand.

There's a man on a corner
leaning on the liquor store

he's got enough losing tickets
scattered at his feet

to build some kind of kite or boat
and get the hell away from here.