Late one night out west,
summer moonlight...
bright and lucid...
too darn hot, couldn`t sleep,
if the moon`s a floodlight,
I`m a searchlight, listening
to the long-distance radio,
some all-night rock station
out of southern California,
and I hear a couple of DJs
killing themselves laughing
because earlier that day
some dumb criminal guy
walked into a bank waving
a gun and screaming,
"All right! Everybody get
down on the floor! Now!
THIS IS A FUCKUP!"
and all the people in the
bank burst out laughing and
the guy just turned around
and ran away.

Over coffee yesterday,
Judy said that could be
the defining moment for
those days, you know,
"THIS IS A FUCKUP!" and
people laughing in a bank,
except now I always seem to
hear it over an old loudspeaker
with luminous feedback
in an empty auditorium.

03/22/2019