I wonder if in the end

We are simply talked to death –

Our minds filled like septic tanks

With comments about our lawn,

Our neighbors, life on TV,

Our new snow tires, our I-pod,

How much a Caribbean

Cruise costs, whether to buy brats

Or ribs for the tailgater,

& what about the weather?

It is as if our cells can’t

Process the shit they take in.

They fill until synapses

Seize up & our systems

Shut down. We poison ourselves.

If our minds were gated

& the security guard

We retained as gatekeeper

Did not doze off when night fell

& stood up to the banshees,

The lawn service always did

Its job, the automatic

Sprinkler systems popped out of

The grass at three am sharp,

Someone came to kill coons,

Then we could lean back against

Our cerebral loves & watch

The football game we’d tivo’d

Last week & drink Budweiser

Lime, eat micro-waved pizza

Until it was as if we’d

Security cam’d ourselves –

Our life repeated again

& again like a looped

Video on a blurred screen.