"We were up late and everyone had been drinking.
And someone said, hey, is that God's head on the boil?
We didn't know where to look or what to think.
It was obviously some sort of perverse joke or not, right?
And the conversation went on for days.
Sober, drunk, asleep, awake.
What did it matter?
Some of us felt the real time was for something, but what?
And the questions kept coming once they started.
My favorite one being too strung together.
What makes art modern, and what does urgent mean now?
Where is the greater good?
That was another worry bandied about.
Followed by, where was the common tint
which gave a feeling of empathy for a minute?
And then grief, because well, where was it?
Will you arm, hoard seeds, go hungry?
Those terrified me, because after all,
who would repair things when the end is pale or dark?
Where will you hide out when capital runs out?
When water?
Which will be greater, the heat or the cold-- wait,
did God's boiling head just say something?
Cry out, 'go to hell' from a giant lobster pot?
Tantalizing us with where to go next?
Our phosphorescent lamps to mark escape paths?
Not that it's not a great party, but whose place is this?
Igniting quail in banana leaves, sons bandaged.
Who invited us?
Why are the emerald bleeding and the ivory weeping?
Lower the freaking music.
Does anyone have the time?"
That was the first poem of my new book,
Who is Trixie the Trasher? and Other Questions.