Thunder Sandwich #18
3 Poems

by Ryan Rowe

DIVIDE AND CONQUER, I SUPPOSE

I'm moving to a subdivision.
Soon all of America will be subdivided.
The developers will make more that way,
after deal upon deal with each other.
The old suburban neighborhoods
even want to do themselves in.
They recruit the most hideous bastards
and form a homeowner's committee
and misplace a sign at the fore
bearing some greeting card name.
It's hopeless to try to escape.
But I wonder if the association
know the madness that goes on
inside my home,
that as I was making plans to move in
I was already typing this,
after much marijuana and beer.
Thinking that they've modeled their creations
after trailer parks.


DARKNESS

Somewhere in my mind
plays the dirgy half-time beginnings
of "War Pigs."
The sirens blare
and the Kurtz figure lurks,
Hitler and now Osama.
They always make some sense
and comprehend none of their doings as evil.
Kurtz says:
"you have a right to kill me...
but you have no right to judge me."
Born into war,
made ambivalent to slaughter.
Could this be the culmination
of evolution/civilization?
Could I have just admitted that Black Sabbath
has had any affect on my psyche?



SHOULD I HAVE REGRETS ?

Before I've even closed on my new home (American Way),
I have a land dispute with the neighbor.
It's OK,
I'm not so neighborly
and I'll fence him off
like the rest of the fucks.
What worries me is getting behind,
but I've never been far behind.
And I'll never let the fucks know,
how much dread they stir in me.
What gets all around me
is the taxing from the fight.
No cause,
but they will only put me down.
Not keep me down.

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