the ryan phillippe cruisin’ usa videogame console

hot, sticky, ryan phillippe nights…
blacklight posters…
a glass ashtray filled with
parliament lights…
stolen peach brandy…
cinemax trenches…
the k swiss kids
asking you to sneak out
so you put the brandy in a Jansport backpack
you meet at the park
they are all jazzed up
on schwag weed
and jolly ranchers
they are rollerblading
showing their legs
the hockey legs…
muscle camps…
the faint, wafting smell of old breezers
used shoulder pads…
there’s a garage sale the next day
at the house of a bauer skate fanatic
a younger brother about
to get hooked on k swiss and
jolly ranchers
it’s not too late for him
but it’s too late…
he’s already into ryan phillippe
both as a celebrity, and as an ideology
he’s already hooked
on code red mountain dew
next up they’ll introduce
him to the jolly rancher life
and the hockey camps
it’s too late to save him
he’s gone
gone forever into the madness
of black light posters and Dolby Digital

years later he’s discovered
living inside a cruisin’ usa video console
at the mall arcade
his fingers are melted into the steering wheel
he and the video game have become one
his voice emits from the speakers
he cannot blink
there is an iv feeding into his arm
it delivers a drip of code red mountain dew
his only sustenance…
a song in the background plays on infinite repeat
it is a semi-charmed life by third eye blind
the kid’s face has been transformed through plastic surgery
he is the spitting image of ryan phillippe
everything else about him is dead
it is not really a human being that sits in there
but there is a boundless smile on its face
that thing in the arcade
it has
a crooked, maddening, terrible, indelible smile

notes from castle danger
(los angeles on my mind)

sometimes i wake up at night
thinking about david carradine dying
of autoerotic asphyxiation
sometimes i think about
that tommy pico poem that i refuse to read on principle
sometimes i change my favorite color
depending on the conversation
the same with books
the same with music
i’ve never experienced art
but sometimes i see shadows on the walls
what, so what
sometimes i change out perfectly good light bulbs
sometimes i jerk myself off
what, what
most of life is a kabuki drama
most of the people you will meet are paper tigers
mark that –
what, what, most

the hype beasts
the influencers
the talk show hosts
the pseudo-epileptics
the twitch kids
the thieves
the poets
the agents of poets
the sex maniacs
the professional victims
the faceless socialites
the red wine brigades…
the range rover freaks
the canada goose john q. publics
the anxiety hustlers
the vacationers…
the soft skin peddlers
the plastic heart surgeons
the Rx warriors
the public radio subscribers
the sustainers
the brunch people
the zine buffs
the pop crush wave artists
the bachelor of arts crowd…
the puzzled lame ducks
the money people from hell

sometime i lie
i’m rotten to the core
sometimes i’m not
sometimes i lie about my favorite food
sometimes i try champagne
what, what
sometimes i lie to myself
what

my job history is fabricated
my gold is fake
i’m squatting south of LA
my lips are sincere
my pulse is electric from the cake and the coke
i can’t sit down
if i sit down i’ll die
i don’t know where to go
i don’t