THE GOOD FIGHT

Toothpaste
the television just told me
I am toothpaste
told me
girl's fall in love with a smile

I don't want no girl
that falls in love with a smile
I ain't no smile
I distrust smiles
in these days of icons
encrusted in stock options

They --the great they
drive around in brand new 280Z's
got a blonde perched in compact leather seats
look at that woman
see two hours spent falsifying
she's out weaving a web of deception
gonna snag a phd

she got eye lashes long
nails in full shine
tits looking like an advertisement for a good time

I cruised that woman
wearing the smile of a child
a sympatico
with the nights brand of wild
Now I feel I gotta scream
gotta be some alarm
that woman looked at me
as if I were a car

I awake to a fuck or fight world
or so it strikes me now
without the burden of reflection
or the preist's solemn vow
an issue here
an issue there
we at war
because that woman looked at me
as if I were a car

and a door opened
a door closed by cash & crosses & psychiatry
opened

souls lose delineation
associations block no beliefs
black becomes white
woman becomes man
& the war in china
becomes my war
& the war in el salvador
becomes my war
and They -- the great they
are putting electrodes on my balls
in uraguy
and They-- the great they
trade my tracked and amputated arm
to support black clad cops
slouching into bethelehem
bayonets drawn

inspired and jagged
I have smoked my teeth yellow
my bills are unpaid
my heart is free
for a moment
from they -- the great they
I sit between molecules
in contemplation of all they -- the great they
have told me is unintelligbile

were I reckless man without choices
I would learn to live this soldier's life without one regret
I'm not
when the poem withers within
I will know I'm alone
and though these eyes will not be vacant
this one regret will exact its cost
I will miss her

In this war
the false ones will call themselves poets too
they-- the great they
would have you believe
battles are won with scorn
as if the lyre alone
were ever a sheild

They -- great they
would have us believe
stroking our egos
is the only function of the word

this writing just went crazy
two blocks away
a crack dealers screaming
junkie can't pay
& from accross town I still feel a woman
three months with child
she took her four year old along for the buy
had sores on her face
and asked this cabbie if he'dl fuck her for the ride

businessmen will call themselves poets too
in a strictly cocktail party sense
all it takes is memorization
of the liberal pseudo-stance
and the hypocrisy of an atheist
who still buys christ's crap

to hell with the singularity of thier sulphurous breath
released under the cover of laughing gas
spewed from the mouth of some babe
who buys all the press
and still clings to a belief
there is some god coming around
after the toys all grow rusty
and plastic surgery fails

just like those kids in china
whose mouth filled with blood
as they-- the great they
whispered ghandi's cry
those kids died from a history class
which missed the crucial years
when ghandi's wife
had to beat them indians
to reacquaint them with their fears

there just ain't no god coming round
wishing won't make it be
so ya just can't be
what they want ya to be
just to be
what they -- the great they
want ya to be
no more


------------------------------------------------all work here is the sole property of John Scott Ridgway, Chicago Illinois, host of the elves attic reading, every Friday night at the Big Star Cafe.