Is This Real Life?

Daniel, the drugged boy, looked at his father
In paranoid disbelief and fear.
With the world bent west and bones of reality exposed
He could not comprehend the new world in his eyes.
"Is this real life?" he asked in amazement,
Ignoring his father's laughs and reply.
And so too ask I, though I am not drugged
Nor a child (anymore)
Though I wish that I was.

"Is this real life?" is a question for ages
And angels too, if they oblige to respond.
But only a child hopped up by the dentist
Could ask it so clearly; no pretense, unprompted,
No nightmares of quantum physics to know
Or fears of the universe (how does it grow?)
Or lost wives to death in cemetery nights,
Pubescent angst in the rain soaked street lights,
The fog of sin in Christ's cyclops eye
The knowledge to know you can make yourself die
The black hole sight of fate in despair
Knocked around by the pinball mechanics of time.

"Is this real life?" Sometimes I wonder.
Because I long for things real but feel so often denied.
Is real life pretty or gritty or shitty or what?
Does it fly around in circles or walk the straight path?
The visionary's legs hold our minds in place
But the question resounds kicking away their strong stance.
Unbalanced and unhinged the world unravels,
Leaking monsters and Gods from the creationist sea.
Spatial colors blast from parallel suns,With hues that no earthly eye can see.
Galaxies roam in the back alley clinics
Looking for whores to preach to in vain
And the Einstein Kings live in their clouds,
Chaperones for the speed of light - the one constant that never will change.
"Is this real life?" Maybe is the only reply I know.

"Is this real life?" I heard Marion say too.
The cities swell with faces;
And some will be broken.
The drunks smoke cigarettes with cups in hand
Waiting for change too.
The rain falls sporadic, no one smiles on the street,
Umbrellars are open.
Hours tick by in seconds and minutes and days never end.
The news testifies to problems 24 hours at a time.
The problems never end.
Hands off or hands on the world crumbles because...
Mexico gives us drugs, we give them guns,
Through underground tunnels that bypass the fence.
I saw it on TV (it must be true!)
I learn Cartels from 'Weeds' and I laugh.
"Is this real life?" I hope not is the truth.

"Is this real life?" - a succession of books
With Hamlet at bottom, screaming for naught
Of a mad prophesy filled with computers and Nixons
Giving rise to Revelation with the union man's stamp.
Lincoln responds by quoting MacBeth
But he's thinking about Claudius and how he's him too,
With an Ophelia dripping that becomes a burned flag
Of a country divided and ripped into war
In a time and a place where the killer was silent,
Because the water we shat in was the water we drank
(This still might be true).
But Hamlet's life is the truest testament:
The mind left to wander finds what it seeks,
Be it conspiracies of fools with armageddons at hand
Or left wing vigilantes with bat wings in night
Or rose petals that smell of immortality and jewels
Or the tears that roll down from life's long divides.
The mind left to wander finds what it seeks
But it often never seeks the real life respite
Because real life boiled down is darwinian boredom -
Anticipation of an end inevitably diverted
By days in and days out of the strict reverie.
"Is this real life?" Yes, but none believe they're there.

Daniel, Daniel, Daniel,
Are you out of the lions den of your dentist dream?
I hope not, for your sake.
Jesus is in our computers
And the clock is ticking down.
I'll kiss your youtube stasis
And bow when you are crowned.

"Is this real life?"
I hadn't thought to ask.
But now that I've asked, I'm not sure.
And not sure I want to know.

6/09