patrick.net

How about these (pre-morning coffee, so forgive me):

For Sale signs I see
like so many blades of grass.
Is there a bubble?

Who is Bernanke?
Our Helicopter pilot
or bubble popper?

Should I wait to buy?
Who will be the greatest fool?
I hope it's not me.

I see homes selling.
Prices can only go up.
Yes, I am a troll.

A grizzled and graying wizard of
a man rambles on up the hills of South
San Jose, Led Zeppelin style,
and weeping
like an old Testament Prophet
over the high cost of housing.

With one sweeping gesture
he brandishes a middle
finger salute to Silicon Valley in
its final throes of economic funk...

With a sonorous thunder of voice
he pronounces "anathema!"
upon the frazzled masses of taxed-out
inhabitants for their dot.com frolics,
housing bubble excesses, mergers &
aquisitions and other such useless
pursuits of the American dream turned
nightmare...

A fair-weathered lizard with leathery
skin climbs gingerly upon a rock
and muses to himself, "this place has gone
to the birds!" A butterfly,
flutters by then flies down
to Marie Callendars on Blossom Hill
Avenue, to have a piece of home-
style apple pie.

Meanwhile, bills pile higher and higher
upon my desk...unpaid, save for my health
club membership, as I dream of obtaining
the six-pack abs I saw on
a TV infomercial at 3 a.m.
the other morning,
that will transform my life
from insouciance and strife as I attempt
to score a hot, trophy wife
at the local five and dime store...

Once more, I sway
like a Willow in the breeze
as I tease the lid off my fifth
Dos Equis beer, quaffed to kill the pain
and dreams of the days
when I could Boogieboard at Santa Cruz carelessly,
in fun and frolics unabated
by nonsense like finding a career
in high-tech pc board manufacturing...

I cackle like a maniac at the train wreck
of my meager existence, and write my last
check for my college loan obtained,
like a mortgage on a house,
for a useless business degree that got
me minimum wage serial employment and
not that shiny new career I was promised
as the fruit of my labor.

Amongst the new slave labor
class of indigenous asses and sundry
California folk, I am but a cog
in the wheel
of gears that grind
me to a fine grist in the foggy
mist descending upon the valley in
cosmic bliss that cackles its
existential frivolity and points an
accusing finger at life
in my newfangled world.

I adjust my glasses, and feel hard
stabs of pain at the soft memories
of good times and good vibrations that
whirl in a shimmering phantasmagoria of
wheels within wheels glimmering
in this steel trap called
Silicon Valley.

I forage like an alley cat
in the back alleys
of my mind, rummaging for sweet
memories of my salad days
as I ponder the mere shell
of my former self I have become...

The cold thud of reality strikes
my solar plexus like a 5.7 earthquake
rumbling through the San Andreas fault line,
as it moves down my spine to the sound
of the Beach Boys blaring from my radio.

Not even wine will make my domestic economic
catastrophe rosy. I cook up an escape plan as
my green eggs and ham sizzle
in a frying pan on my stove. What the heck,
screw real estate and
high-tech. I'll move to Oklahoma and farm
rice. That would be nice!

It may not be California Nirvana but
it beats munching on an
enchilada and having to endure another night
of birds fighting in the cage next
door, as their wings flap, or
more than that,
the silent sound of one
hand

clapping...

yes, well of course, it's all too easy for harm and newsfreak... :?

some of us are linguistically impaired you know...