Captive Audience

Hanging on to the back of The Dragon, on with
plumes of smoke, floating resonance through the mountains
inlaid with the popular neighborhoods of the birth land.
Faces smile, bellies swell with booze
and echoing laughter resounds through the air.

Watching the iron birds fly in from behind a chained link fence,
in a country where terror is just a corner away
most times all we find is smiling faces
filling the air with freedom and grace.
No wonder they want to take it away.

People come back from captivity,
the nine to five grind of the "American Dream,"
back to a reality they'd lost with "American Idol"
infused with propaganda legally rectified sealed and processed,
to smell freedom in the air puffed just a few feet away.

In the words of a drunken genius clown
who levitated 6 machetes, 3 balls, and 4 pins
up in the air for the world to see,
right on 24 and 6th, in front of the coffee shop
where the green worm makes a left turn:

"Thing I love about all of you Pereiranos is that you're rebels.
You do things the way YOU'RE gonna do them."
So he took a swig from his alcohol just as he joined
a dispersing crowd who carefully ran away
from the falling machetes, balls, and pins.

Sunsets come up every night in conversation
as the day slowly wonders into night with twilight
close behind the two, it is never sure which way to go,
covered in golden twilight splendor
memories are recorded, stored, to be later remembered.

Floating along on the back of the dragon,
plumes of smoke behind and
there she sits with her one hand in her hair
as the other passes the spliff she rolled with Prometheus–
Eris just loves to be around good company.