Rock-n-Roll Radio

They sold the radio station
a little more than a week ago,
switched to Christmas music,
and in another week
will reformat to soft jazz.

It's a goddam crime.

I'm not just considering myself.
I'll get my rock-n-roll fix.
Worry not for me, but for the poor
displaced DJ's mourning
the slow demise of rock radio.

I can see them in small rooms
beneath tattered Ramones or
Pink Floyd posters, stubbing out
generic cigarettes while the HiFi
loops the latest by the Black Keys.

Fear not, sullen DJ's, they buried
our station.  I cannot find
the Chili Peppers anywhere on the dial,
but I won't plan the funeral yet.
It may be underground, but it ain't dead.

Angry Christmas Songs

Did I apologize to you
for not being in touch
this past year?

If not, then
I'm sorry for not saying
I'm sorry.

Honestly, it was these
Christmas lights that got me
feeling sappy and apologetic.

You know, the electric blue ones
hung from the eaves
of that house on Cambridge.

If I'd seen you 15 minutes earlier
when The Kinks' "Father Christmas"
was on, I might've

punched you in the face.
So, I guess I'm sorry for that
as well.  I was thinking,

there aren't enough
angry Christmas songs, and
we should get together soon.

In the Glow of My Computer Monitor.

I believe that we have
too much information,
that it has become
as inescapable as
winter cold, or hunger,
that we have become
disfigured as a result,

and furthermore

that even if I returned
to the vast treeless plains
of western Kansas
where I once watched
violent electric storms
on a horizon
hundreds of miles away

I would still be overcome

by the soft glow of a monitor,
deceptively beautiful,
like hunger before a meal,
like clear cold Ohio night.
We are far too ugly
to know this much
about one another.