go nuts in poetry

Re-examine your self-definitions regularly.
You are not a series of categories,
you are a you.
You might miss something great.
Some one or some thing.

And anyway at this point,
every dream is basically impossible
every last one of them
even the eminiently sensible ones
the economy is that entirely screwed.
So you might as well chase you dream,
your crazy one
your stupid one
the one everyone lectures you on.

People with law degrees applying for jobs at the Price Chopper deli.
People with teaching degrees scooping ice cream at Stewarts gas stations.
People with two hundred grand in collegiate debt
going back to college
just to get deferral
on the loans they already have.

So go start a band
it has as much chance of working
as you being a doctor.

Go try out for Broadway
you’re as likely to get it
as a stable job in a factory.

Start that bar you always dreamed of
with the Popeye pinball in the back
it’s about as feasable
as even getting an interview
for that secretary position
let alone hired for a living wage.

The jig is up
the American exceptionalist jig is up
all the people with money
who used to run great industries
to make more money
have retreated into their tax shelters
and their yachts and their European summer homes
and their Bentonville bomb shelters.

Earthquakes are every where.
This is the American dream’s death rattle.
Best to live your dreams now
because whatever’s next
well
I have no earthly idea.
Either way
your debts won’t carry over
but your memories will.

Go nuts, ballerina.
Go nuts, filmmaker.
Go nuts, marijuana crossbreeder.

Go nuts, lovers.
Go nuts.