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Text Messages

whoever it was that created text messaging phones
needs to take all the money they made,
get really drunk, or really high
or a young girlfriend,
anything it takes
to make them old before their time
so they can die.


who thought it would be a good idea
to have a mailbox to carry around with you
everywhere you go?
who even thought it would be nice
to have a portable telephone,
always on call?



don't people leave their homes
to be away from their mailboxes,
away from their phones.
the majority of letters were written by a stamping machine.
the majority of phonecalls are from people that haven't the guts
to show up at your door,
let alone, tell the truth.



and when there's a man and a woman
that are both mad,
or one mad at the other,
everywhere you go,
she has your number,
everywhere she goes,
she can't escape his angry charm.--
you hear a noise or feel a vibration.
is it the publisher's clearing house poetry event,
or the latest friend to have gotten paid
dinner money for a night out of the week?
no.--it's the girl being mad.
it's somebody that's accusing you of something
you didn't do
(but might as well have done),
because she's already punished you for it
an eye for an eye...


or it's the man with the weight of the world
on his sleeve,
and you're too busy coming up with lies
when he lights up, unprepared,
your phone, twenty--thirty some times
a day.
between all the other calls
and text messages
you pay your hard earned dollars,
and sell your soul
to the corporate pimp with interest,
to explain how you "can't come to the phone
right now," when phones are made that come
to you, and never die.



men that never die.
women that never die.
phones and makers of phones
that never die.
and everyone of them has something to say.



and if you can't come to the phone right now,
there's a world full of people that can.
and you can say the same thing
to them all.
it doesn't matter.



as long as we're doing something!
--doing something,
to keep the service going.
and to get our money's worth the service.

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