Sunday At The Uptown
Stephen Elliott
Poems are for lying
For unfulfilled need
The love that fails
the love you love but doesn't love you back
The girl that left
The girl that stole your car
Ruminations on the girl that stole your car while driving on the
back roads of the American Southwest
I miss feeling things
I miss believing deeply
Worrying about my generation
Generation X
Generation Y
The non-voting generation
Generation MTV
And what they are doing to us
The fat generation
Generation corporate welfare
Generation Reagan
The unilateralists
I miss my idealism
The dope house with the shit on the floor
Tom's never ending habit
Waking up early to get Dan off to school
I'm sick of feeling that things aren't so bad
At least we've got food labeling
At least we've got the internet
I Yahoo!
I New York Times
I'm current
I am a current
I like a little drama
I haven't had any drama in a long time
All I've got is a sick father
All I've got is a couple of perversions
But I haven't put lipstick on to walk the streets in years
I haven't stood the corners, like JT Leroy
Sucking dick just to have an audience
In a long time
This is the year
This is the business
It's a pill with a smiling face
Wash it down quickly
I'm tired of feeling good
I'll regret it when it's over
I'll regret it when my luck is gone
I'll look back and I'll say I had it good
I didn't know what I had
I didn't savor my happiness
Money in my pocket
Poker games every week
The way I look back on playing blackjack with Louie
And dice in McCormick House
And gin in the mental hospital
There was my chance, I'll say, and I blew it, I blew my one big
break
My generation voted for Propostion 21
My generation ousted Hugo Chavez for two days
Stood in the windows of the towers while the planes moved forward
and the buildings buckled at the knees and slipped to the ground
My generation forgot the towers six months later
With gunmen in the manger the economy was falling
My generation bought shares in Enron
AOL
My generation was merged in a leveraged buyout
And given a partial stake in Internet Life
We are bar lights
And bands playing
De-focused on Aderall and Ritalin
I'm so tired of being tired
Tired of dying
And not caring
Tired of not caring and having nothing to care about
Tired of masturbating to kill the time
Tired of killing time
Tired of not mattering
Of struggling for a voice
And having nothing to say
Tired of moaning for my lost hope
My lost causes
I used to do good works
I used to care
I used to laugh while making oatmeal in the homeless shelter at
six a.m.
Tired of waiting for the bar to close to go home and get some
sleep
Tired of running away
And coming home
I miss being homeless
I've forgotten how cold Chicago gets
I'm sick of masturbating
When I should be digging for food
Don't ask me to accept this place
A studio with a mattress in the corner and wooden floors
I'll burn it to the ground
Love is loving somebody
Not being loved
Love is caring about the outcome
Even though it will never work out
You place your money on a losing horse
And wade through the shit to the middle of the stadium and stroke
its mane
To say it's OK
You didn't come in first
You didn't even place
That's what love is
ADDENDUM:
You could be the next Patty Smith if you can get anybody to
listen and if you survive all the pills and the mess
You're a street performer but your tits are all wrong
You're the greatest pinball player of all time
You're two men playing scrabble at the same time
You're a third beer
A final shot
A last call
I'm attracted to you with the lethargy of the drunk
You're more than I can afford
I can only love you when you're mean
Generation who am I
Generation tie me down and stick an electrified butt-plug in my
ass
Generation that feels good
Generation boom and bust
Generation George W
Generation Fuck Kyoto
Fuck Iran
Fuck North Korea
the greatest minds of my generation were not undergraduates at
Columbia University
They built self-fulfilling web pages
Based on comic book critique
I'll show you my playstation if you show me yours
I don't care
I don't care
I can't remember anything else
I can't even remember enough to be mad
**