UNDERGROUND VOICES MAGAZINE/RON SURGA


	UNDERGROUND VOICES: POETRY

RON SURGA

next stop, palookaville

Prologue:

"A little bit more money and you get to fuck her..."
--Spalding Gray, 'Swimming to Cambodia"

Fuggedabout Dante and celestial splendor and withering maples
And tiny handfuls of dust,
Next stop Palookaville

Don't know who I'm supposed to be saluting,
Except for a little bit more money,
She gets to fuck me.
Her nipples are standing up like little soldiers,
What's a girl to do.

But the Generals have all gone into hiding
Well to work at Greenbriar as head waiters at the very least.
"We're losing Iraq," they snort between totes.
But it was never ours in the first place.

We all hurtle side saddle into 2007,
Alongside hedge fund bandits, bucolic Southern Baptists,
As a $100 billion a day disappears into
Chancellor Chestnut's Swiss chocolate account.

It's much too late
For a grand recall.
When you've seen one tree,
Then you've seen them all.

As the Leader's storm troopers
Re-light the gas ovens
For an even bigger barn burning,
We meekly thank him
For inviting us to the Rodeo.