At a gas station
That after a brief look over is decidedly not a rest stop
The car breaks down

The dog is shivering like he always does on road trips
And no one knows why
So I go inside
To buy stale chips and weird tea
That I drink on a stone wall in noon’s oven sun

Relief comes
In the form of a glaring skull tattoo
On the scarred arm of a too old man
Mustached
Like the 1940s factory hand
I imagine his father to have been

He speaks in broken engine
More rasp and growl than I can comprehend
I don’t speak this kind of poetry
And cannot gesture calluses as eternal as his fingertips
His sandpaper handshake with tooth enough
For the few missing from his easy smile

He puts one arm up on his open car door so casually
I know he’s told this story before
He met his wife a lifetime ago
Towing her broken down car
“Now, men always going after women is bullshit,”
He tells us
“She
invited me in for the drink

And it’s been 24 years
And she won’t let me get a third dog
And you know what?
I think I’d rather trade her for the third dog

You know”
His smile suggests that he wants for less sincerity
“I’ve put two kids through college
Step kids

And I still never got my drink”

Where’s the line for Santa?
Oh where, oh where could he be?

This Chistmess
This is Christmiss
Christmaze
Christmaddness
Christmustness
Christmastide
Christmaswaves
Christmaslines

But surely this isn’t Christmas?

Mass
Masses
Mass introdus
Mass exodus

The malls have opened.
We have been commissioned:
Ite, missa est.

I have too much love,

It’s time for some hate.

Hate for others and myelf,

hate for the lovers who walk

down main streets blanketed in alcoholic frenzies,

walking down main streets oblivious to us lost souls.

Walking, walking, forever walking,

while loveless bums scrabble for cigarettes,

for booze, for freedom, for the lives they’ve left.

I envy the homeless, the vagabonds on skid row.

They have nothing and are free.

Free from the capitalistic dreams forced on the masses.

Their minds may be riddled with escapisms,

but they made it,

jumped the iron bars of society,

leapt from the shackles that hold us all down.

Who but the mindless masses hold us back,

from what we as humans can achieve,

Who but the mindless masses are high,

on the fumes of progress.

Drunk on propaganda, opium, and poppy seed bagels.

Hallucinating on black gold dreams.

Eating mushrooms to find their God or Gods,

that answer no prayers, indian givers.

This is for the lost,

who hold my envy, at least they have set out

on the trail of life with nothing but their souls.

The feathers on their wings may be sparse,

but at least their wings are spread.

A butterfly is reborn,

woken from the cocoon,

risen from the ashes,

like the phoenix of New Orleans.

Drunken dreams, inebriated souls.

Kiss me on the mouth,

kiss my eyes, and inhale my soul.

I sold it to Satan, 30% off.

But I don’t need it.

I have no need for useless things.

I have no need for useless things,

I have no need for things.

I am casting of my worldly possesions.

My Sermon on the Mount.

This is for the lost,

who hold my envy,

who I will join soon, in my dreams,

in my waking.