Gas-Powered Wreckreation

I pull them 5 ATVs up the hill behind my big diesel just trying to relax on the weekend

We get tired of the same old places and go ahead pioneering different bandit trails

We stop for the snacks we brought along and just tuck the cans and wrappers behind a tree

Little Timmy loves to gun that 4 wheeler just like the little man I need him so much to be

We drag the jet skis 300 miles to the half-dried up reservoir way out in the empty desert

We got giant overstuffed coolers by the tables underneath a colorful plastic party gazebo

We roar around the lake making waves and yelling at each other at the tops of our voices

Drink a lot of beer and just piss and shit out in the water, whenever it strikes us

Tow my 40’ trailer out to Colorado ever august cause it’s too hot in our beloved Texas

We like to spend our days in the truck way up in the high country looking at the scenery

We run a generator for the microwave and blow dryer, the A/C and the DVD

This here is truly god’s country and we’re thinking of building us another second home

We drove 3000 miles to take pictures of ourselves taking pictures at the overlooks

Munched on overpriced, over-sweetened, over-salted, over-packaged treats along the way

Storing the digital memories of a lifetime standing beside lots of other real nice people

Staying safely in the same hotels all along the way and we keep our windows rolled up tight

Trailered up the snow machines and left stinking clouds of smoke pulling them up the pass

Pulled off all kinda like extreme moves as my savage 700 lb metal beastie roared

Tracked down and chased some elk and deer through the heavily drifted snow

Think I really felt I blew off some steam and, why, I didn’t bother nobuddy or hurt nothin

Got out on the water in my 20’ speedboat with those twin 250 horsepower Black Mercs

She’ll run 40 mph and has a 100 gallon gas tank that serves up the good times we love so much

We pull the kids around on water donuts and they lay there and laugh and scream

Why just alone the trailer for this baby is costin me like 13 grand…

Headed out west in our 65’ class C RV that we still owe a cool quarter of a mil on

It’s as big as a semi and protects our frail blue-haired bodies real well

Got a sporty paint job, a catchy name, a little hot tub and pulls our SUV right along behind

Gets 4 MPG and the mechanics charge $85/hr with a $100 minimum to change a bulb

Pulled on my $1500 leathers and strode out into the garage to mount my holy Harley

Had loud mufflers put on so I wear these earplugs but damn does it sound nice

I only ride it some weekends in the summer but it was just $30k from our home equity

Gonna take a freedom ride with the boys out west some day and reclaim my masculinity

Flew off to tony resorts fenced safely from the surrounding poor who despise us

Dropped into the 3^rd world searching for meaning and watched them grub their food

Feasted on dynamited fish and didn’t know or care where the water came from or the waste went

Assured ourselves that our vacationing presence brought a miracle of clean eco-tourism growth

But all these good times just blur together in the anticipation of our next wreckreational adventure

Now, Who Was I Really?

Can I finally risk a moment now to stop and ask, or am I still just in far too much of a hurry

What was my story again? just text me the take away

Did I ever even try to know? yeah, right…so why would anyone else even ask

Was I swimming hard but just holding my small place there, close to the bank

What were those unspecified goals towards which I moved with ever increasing speed

Did my influence end simply when I finally ceased spending more than I was earning

What slowly diminishing rippling effects spread out in that wake I long ago stopped making

Who is there to answer for me, if even I did not try and question it at all for myself

Who was I but some uncle who died long ago, barely known, leaving them nothing

And who were they, but minor characters, overlooked in my unscripted personal melodrama

Do I abide in a saccharine heavenly glory, or have I been sent to their tragicomic hell, or?

Where are those missing final statements from the boring ledger of my passing life

Who was I really, if I myself could not be bothered to take the time to stop and ask

Was I that gray and sick old man they turned from, who could not even sit up in bed

Maybe the smiling, hurried so-called professional who could not stay too long

Then again, there was that dripping boy who so reminded them of his grandfather

Who was that guy I looked at in the pictures someone else took when I happened to be there

What were those things that I found so important back then that they kept me so long in a blur

Was I the one always laughing too loudly, way too often, at the expense of others

Did I really spend a third of my life in bed and fully another fifth in front of a TV

Why cant I find all that stuff I held as the very dearest to life, not really too long ago

Where are those little darlings that made even all that work seem so worthwhile

Where has that woman gone I loved so much that it could make me cry

Is it true there really is no way, looking back from now, to find out who I was then

Why does the value of my pleasures seem to have drained through my hands like so much water

How come I don’t remember all the holidays I spent so much time looking forward to

How can I fail to be able to reckon up the present value of my lifelong reckless habits

Who was I and did that answer already disappear many years ago, somewhere in my clueless past

Does it all really dribble out to nothing at an empty dead end, just past nowhere

Then again, there certainly were moments, though I have sewn no meaningful tapestry

Can’t I reach back now to enjoy the worth of all the things I always did - for the future

Now can I ask for some of that that time I was always working so hard to try and save

Leading The Undeveloping World

Lighting this new and self-inflicted Dark Age with our blindingly intolerant religions

Scoffing at any scientists whose work contradicts our faith - Or that of our donors

Denying millions to what we trumpet as the world’s finest health care system

Increasing illiteracy rates with every graduating class of our overweight and spoiled children

Devolving freedom of the press into cheerfully-empty, commercially-safe soundbites

Encouraging the ignorant poor to breed freely as the educated opt out of parenthood

Arming ourselves with god’s blessing for any neo-crusade our leaders see fit to pursue

Letting our infrastructure crumble around us but automatically raising cost-plus military spending

Rejecting investment in actual business for artificial speculation in phony financial innovations

Refusing to set any example on emissions and energy use for developing countries

Encouraging our own Balkanization through expensive multi-lingual governance

Rewarding phony, closeted leaders for exporting research, engineering, production and support

Building up vast stores of usable materials in our dumps for future hand-gathering by our descendants

Leading the world in time spent at war, anorexia, tv-watching, debt and obesity

Being the most aware of the importance of reality shows and entertainment news

Far ahead at portraying environmental issues as wacko threats to family and economy

Twisting the pursuit of happiness into a god-given right to shortsighted, selfish greed

Granting ever more control to the rich while patronizingly-fleecing the shrinking middle class

Measuring the success of political candidates through their fundraising results

Exporting our pollution to third world industry then scolding them on human rights

Being governed by multi-generational, aristocratically-inbred, star-power families

Rigging voting districts upon our election to ensure a continuing stream of victories

Requiring illegal workers since we made the jobs, conditions and pay so very poor we wont do them

Institutionalizing a paralyzed two-party system as if it were mandated by our sacred constitution

Profiting handsomely by encouraging polarization through destructive and divisive opinionating

Encouraging a faux economic growth through the promotion of negative savings rates

Performing phony political litmus tests like gun control, abortion, flag burning and gay marriage

Increasing our infant mortality and bringing back vitamin deficiency, TB and malnutrition

Smugly relying on disappearing non-renewables for all our inefficient daily activities

Cynically rejecting sustainability as an expensive hoax spun by elitist liberal conspirators

Keeping the military in check by granting it a hefty budget increase every single year

Speaking with a country twang to mask your elitist background and ownership by the corporations

Stalling progress by staying on expensively-crafted but childishly-simple message in virtuoso fashion

Scoffing with a god-granted exceptionist superiority at global opinion, morality and lifestyle

So-called 3^rd world Costa Rica has a higher literacy rate than the undeveloping United States

Fumbling Along, Accidentally Shattering

Honestly, all I did was pick it up for the first time and it just fell apart in my hands

It was not our objective to turn rivers into filthy, stinking, channelized dead zones

I tripped over it and then watched as it split into a million razor-pointed shards

Our plan did not specify that we would convert life-giving rain into poisonous runoff

I never saw that other car approaching as I texted while turning left, reaching for my coffee

We did not mean to gash the landscape and ruin the air to provide power for happy families

I forced its mechanism until something snapped and then I slowly picked up the instruction sheet

Their collateral suffering was not detailed in our larger strategy for their democratic liberation

With a choice of assembling it one way of 2 ways, as always I did it incorrectly the first 2 times

Our efforts to grow our food were not meant to unwind the surrounding ecosystem

I don’t remember what I was grasping for when I spilled the coffee that ruined the rug

It was never intended that our war for their freedom would fracture their society

Afterwards it was easy to see how stupid it was to leave it sitting there, right in the way

Trying to foster economic growth we unwittingly destroyed the natural systems that supported it

I bet on a long shot without thinking much and quickly lost far more than I could afford

When the logging and mining was done there were suddenly neither jobs nor tourists

I was backing out when I felt a muffled crunch and heard a splitting sound behind me

We assumed a trillion independent selfish decisions would blindly optimize our futures

I reached out for something else and this fell, broken into a thousand pieces, on the floor

We never realized how really cheap oil was until we were suddenly paralyzed by its price

I was just trying to keep us happy but our family emissions helped end a biological era

We never thought real estate would tumble as we packaged up all those bad loans

It accidentally shattered as we turned the corner and struck it against the wall

We never intended to create this endless sterile, unimaginative and alienating environment

Trying to steady the nail with one hand, I beat my finger black and blue with the hammer

Well, obviously we could not have foreseen a climate change induced agricultural collapse

In my hurry I tried to carry too much at once and then cleaned up for many hours afterwards

The objectives of our corporate hog farms did not include poisoning human drinking water

Standing up, I lacerated my forehead one more time on that darn overhanging shelf

We could not foresee their local development decisions that fostered regional ecological collapse

The wrench slipped again and I gashed my knuckle which then filled with filthy grease

The roads we built to speed up traffic quickly cloned into snarled and decaying suburbs

Walking in the dark, I broke my wrist before I even knew I had slipped on unseen black ice

Pesticides saved the crops but got into the water and poisoned our mothers and children

I did not realize you stood behind us as I joked loudly about your many shortcomings

We never meant to ruin the economy by destroying the only environment that made it possible, at all

Mindless Consumer Magic

Anytime it gets kinda hot, I just twist a thermostat and some good old cool air begins to flow

The CO2 from that coal-fired power plant plays no role in our Traditional Family Values©

I slide my credit card at the pump and drive away alone in my 9 passenger vehicle

We’re conveniently supporting terrorists with every tankful so that we can fight them there

The rain splashes off all that nice smooth concrete into little rivulets as we drive

The oily residues which taint the feeder creeks are absolutely no concern of ours

Our shiny trash cans are overstuffed with recyclable materials that we call our garbage

Hey, let the wackos sort that shit out after we roll our kids futures to the curb

With a simple twist of my wrist, fresh clean hot and cold water flows from the tap

I don’t know where it comes from or care where the shit I put on my green lawn goes

It’s magic how the bulldozers turn non-productive wetlands into family neighborhoods

There’s no way these blessed suburbs represent brutally efficient habitat destruction

If I get hungry while I’m upon my busy way, I idle on in thru a fast food drive thru lane

Later on I do my part and stuff all of that packaging waste into some convenient dumpster

We proudly support our troops with plastic decals affixed to our imported cars

They’re made in fume-filled sweatshops overseas by ignorant peasant wage slaves

Our unearned home equity was an amazing source of funds for vacations and toys

Now our interest rate is too high, we owe more than it’s worth, so we deserve a bailout

My son was uniquely gifted and showed great potential at an extremely early age

The doctors have ascribed his lack of success and bad attitude to ADHD and poor schools

It’s magic how the stores brim with things I just saw on TV and simply have to have

Mom and Dad always buy for me so that I will remain their friend and still talk to them

Simply pushing buttons on the remote from the couch brings up 150 big screen channels

There’s not too much on that we really watch, but that monster sucks down the juice 24x7x365

I joyfully immerse myself in the spectacle of commercial sports at any opportunity

I love watching overpaid black criminals brutally bash each other, clad in shiny, tight spandex

I love the freedom of the open road and the wind in my hair on my Harley-Davidson

It sits for months depreciating in the way in the garage while I miss a few more payments

There’s nothing quite so relaxing as quietly sitting and fishing on a peaceful lake

We rip across the water on 200 dirty horsepower which exhausts straight down into the water

The freedom of the open road beckons us from the comfort of our mobile home

7 miles a gallon, tons of CO2 and a noisy generator so we can watch our DVDs in AC’d comfort

It’s magic how the meat we love appears wrapped in plastic so very clean and safe

We don’t see or want to know about the filthy feedlots and those bloody slaughterhouses

We see a future filled with more bright consumption and happy indulgence for the kids

It’s a wonderful and magic world made simply for our pleasure, convenience and comfort

Time Could Not Heal

Time did not heal the wounds he wore as he attended his own solemn burial

The passing of so many hurried years did not make them any wiser

Their broadcasted fantasies were not meant to have prepared the populace

Endless dull repetition did not bring her to some flashpoint of enlightenment

Sadly, the fear and worry that always drove them never lead to that happily ever after

All the time that convenience saved them was not stockpiled for their later enjoyment

Their passing would not heal the awful recognitions they suffered during their last days

There was no happy guided segue from this laying tubed up in a paralyzed desperation

That ever-pending eternity would disperse their strong feelings but never change them

Forever could not make up for any of their suffering, despite other’s pious assurances

For time could heal them no more once they had gone off and left us for good

The light-hearted empty lives of some, ironically enough, proved as useful as any pious brooding

Time neither erased his sins nor granted him the forgiveness his victims finally learned

Distance did not separate them from the memories they would always carry inside

No matter who those sad women slept with, they always awoke with themselves

The many long years did not help him to accept his own hideous apparition

She always carried that pain in a place that was walled off, but not inaccessible

They always sought something indefinable, though there was nothing left to tempt them

Time would certainly not heal the loneliness of her isolation during those final years

His healthy lifestyle was of no use forever once all his cells had ceased activity

They even dreamed it was not time that they needed, but devices that might save it for them

As he slowly faded, his only wish was that he could simply resume his empty, hectic life

The eternity that awaited her was oblivious to her many selfless sacrifices

His passing did not bring him the long-awaited pleasure of seeing his many enemies in Hell

Sadly, their quiet acceptance of lifelong suffering did not grant them an eternity with god

Time did not even try to heal their pain as their spreading wakes never quite faded to nothing

There would be no paradoxical heaven which included both the wise hermit and the great leader

Time could not halt the dispersion of any molecules that made up their hypothetical eternal souls

Allahu Akbar

God is the greatest <whichever one you choose>

God is Great, or so we shout, leaping righteously at each other’s unbelieving throats

And why not, for has He not revealed only to us, His chosen people, His living word

He grants us access to an inner strength that our fearful minds are otherwise denied

He relieves us of the monstrous uncertainty that envelops us in this frightening universe

Of course! We must raise arms to defend His loving message against the teeming infidels

Quite naturally our God is male and no foolish mother nature or some sexless spirit

We can go forth sealed in the ironclad certitude arising out of our mindless prayers

Allahu Akbar and He seriously does say to cover women’s faces and to grow out your beards

Faith and prayer will be answered, if not in this world, then, in the paradise to come

God remains great even if others twist and pervert His word to their selfish and greedy ends

Yes, He commends you to martyr your hopeless life while spokesmen make His videos

Obviously, He is taking an active interest in your stand on the sanctity of marriage

All our seemingly pointless hate and death and war really are His Divine Will being done

We greet each other, my unsmiling brothers, with the phony shibboleth of an Allahu Akbar

He grants us dispensation to quote Him freely out of context as meets our selfish needs

Our Lord Shiva adorns our missiles and His fellows sanctify our sick but cozy caste system

Private internal dialogs with our Personal Saviors yield irrevocable and guilt-free decisions

He gave us the Inquisition, the Taleban, Al-Qaeda and the New World Holocaust

Acting in His name they pimp various paradises which require only a simple but total faith

Twisting the fiction of His word, they channel our trusting belief towards their need to power

Yes, God is still great and the truth He revealed is absolutely no invention of man

We can stone disobedient women and burn the heretical at the stake in His name

Given their active imaginations, there is nothing in their commands that our faith cannot justify

Yes, we know evil when it raises its head and we recognize that the Great Satan is among us

He watches over us all tallying our sins and working in mysterious ways to test our faith

He knows all beforehand, sees everything, yet still awaits our decision to accept Him

And if you pray for a dogmatic guidance long enough, He’ll probably speak with you, as well

What a burden of anxiety lifted and awful guilt over our actions re-forged into pride

You can safely let go your fate into His hands reciting Allahu Akbar until you pass away

But, you must listen when others tell of His commands that the enemy be destroyed

For this is a non-negotiable package deal from which you must accept all or burn in Hell

Oh yes, and don’t forget that you’ll also receive a personal relationship with your Savior

So if you play by their rules you can live happily and get to dwell in Heaven forever

Right, and they’ll throw in assorted ancient dusty prophets, mysteries and miracles

You can lose your fear of death and accept all their horrors as simply part of God’s will

God is great and He can ease your fears if you just blindly grant Him, and us, your fictional soul