Shanghai’d in Paradise.

I want to go somewhere and be desolate.

Out here, in the country

Isn’t far enough.

I need to be a stray in a city,

Alone in an empty crowded place

Like a phantom limb,

To do my best work.

We are fighting each other

Over our own seclusion;

So desperate for attention

We jockey for position

At the speed of rattlesnakes.

Venomous creatures live alone.

We want to be seen, and not touched.

We want to be heard, but not answered.

We want the esteem

Of being well-versed in literature,

But this era is too busy

For busy poetry.

We want something for nothing;

We want it immediately,

And we want it to change our lives.

It’s Vegas Baby!

And we’re all trying to win big

In a desert.

God damned the desert.

Just about anyone can be seen from the clouds

On a salt flat so shallow.

Now every washed-up prom queen gets to feel accomplished.

This place,

Is not meant to support new life.

Its purpose is to decompose

Every one-hit wonder and regurgitate.

Repackage.

Resell.

Feed you like a baby bird.

I’ve been doing this a long time.

By now, I don’t expect anyone to give a shit.

But I have no right,

It’s hard to imagine Neal Cassady at the bar

Punching notes into a smartphone;

Or what Jack’s Instagram page would look like.

I doubt we’d ever know.

He wasn’t the type of Catholic to modernize.

And he sure as Hell

Wasn’t the type of Buddhist

to profess enlightenment on the internet.

#poetry #prose #nealcassady #jackkerouac #selfieculture #disassociation #alienation #vanity #society #technology