the petting zoo

by Brian Le Lay

don't dare jolt the barbwire fence
so long as the wireless is working

and they keep the brainless beat booming
through the black bows of trees,
a synthesis to stagnate to,
it's scary in the wild

what ever happened to the glory days
of twelve-hour webcam masturbation
on a national holiday?

the neighbor's festive twinkling lights
and lamplit santa claus
hazing through your frosted window,

jim-bob your naked woolen stomach whiter
than mary-ellen snow

and that middle-aged man from colorado
i almost had phone sex with
but chickened out
when i heard his voice
where's he now? typing a series
of facebook statuses which chronicle
the boiling of a pot of water?

wikipedia is the lonely drunk uncle
of encyclopedias who knows a lot
about six cylinder engines
and teaches you to drive stick
while taking pulls
from a silver whiskey flask,
whatever it takes to forget the war,

internet is a library burnt to pyramids
of sawdust ash and pissed on

and pasted back together,

a sad petting zoo where prolifically
anti-intellectual college kids
like zebras with their stripes skinned,
like lobsters with their claws clipped,
like race horses long surpassed their heydays,
receive the superficial kisses
for which they so deeply yearn,

proffer flaccid vacant statements
and whine oh my the immense
academic trick-chutes and tripwires
of the thirteenth grade

settle for state schools, the predictable shadows
of your childhood bedroom,
maintain your social stride and cower,

you've the night-creeks in your old
wooden staircase memorized,
why move on? zimbabwe's where?
no no we know where europe is
we just don't care to go

and it's a slow, slow

death.