Author Information
Rigor Mortis Pays a Visit
Come smell the rotting corpse of America while it lasts
She’s playing hopscotch on her last diseased legs
All while the kids next door preform accurate sweep kicks
Their smiles are sinister in the way only adolescence can be
All but sprouting horns as their prey collects the neuroses
We said “Stand by me” and then they stood behind us
Nudged us over the void with the quietest of Spartan war cries
But this isn’t a game of naïve ineptitude or betrayed solidarity
We were where the wild things are, kings of our playground
Frolicking in a fantasy where the Capitalist came the most
While the rest are left with Mary Palmer and her unhappy endings
Let’s leave the Roman parables for a paragraph in another’s prose
The Red, White and Blue never knew how big that empire grew
We are but 20 year’s old, drunk and about to get personal with a tree
Our last memory is Jenny hearts Jon, and then it’s off to oblivion
This is the extent of our maturity, never were we wise enough
To know that our fault lines swayed like the mood swings
Of a teenager hopped up on Red Bull and store bought testosterone
Never were we content with dignity and social decorum
Or escaped the scapegoat mentality, our comfort zone
Instead relying on bullish chauvinism mixed with pretty panic
Two extremes volleying for first serve in a never ending match
We have become bipolar in country and in self
No longer are we the spectrum, instead relegated to red, blue
And a couple of pink ladies with feather boas in the back
All shouting points of view to a jester’s court
What happened to the great voices that bled through the wood?
Or the Vicious Circle laying verbal mind fields
For an undeserving ego not good enough to breath
The carcinogen air so that he or she may see Algonquin grins
Why must one scour the social landscape to discover such minds?
And even when found, you cannot help but feel pity for the silence
What happened to the delicate and beautiful art of curiosity?
Where one fascination breeds another and down we go
Gazing wide eyed through the halls of human ingenuity
If we cannot grow to have wisdom, then let’s go back to crawling
Let us once again have child eyes, where the mundane is amazing
And the politics of respect holds no sway in a sandbox of treasures
Let us be children, for the stench has set in during these last stages
Rigor Mortis has come to visit and he’s no neighbor for a laugh track
This sitcom is dying; it has lost its popularity and forgotten its core audience
I fear we may not last long enough to be reborn again through syndication
