the house

	rigid lines channel my body to the post office a neighbor eyes me as i eye his rusted pickup truck my favorite yard drifts by in diverse growth patterns concrete suffocation sunlight hurts my eyes, burns my skin frustration at the complete blindness of the crushing machine
my friends are all clients now computer wannabes needing a free update the dust is incredible here my neighbor is a smoking cancer factory woodstoves, barbeques, cigarettes
	i live adjacent to a gas station every night i can hear the sounds of a tanker air brakes release, metal valves rattling open beeping, and hissing gas is the drug, grass is the weed cars are knives, roads are scars
the chilling reality of this hellish civilization ugly asphalt killing everything in sight rampant human greed
	the sound of car alarms here is incessant no burglaries, just owners testing, testing, testing
junk mail flows like water only 4 percent of california's redwoods remain after the consumer culture came in the mid-1800's most of the wood goes to build decks and patios, fences and cabinets the future holds floods, cancers, and burning drought
	the neighbors concrete backyard echoes the barking of a mechanical poodle, a human toy our bamboo stand destroyed, nothing obstructs our view of the 24-hour gas station at night, brilliant halogens pierce our privacy darkness lost
music, sweet bubbling music electronic murmuring acoustic resonances brief respite from the tremendous mountain of work to do to dismantle the machine relearn the connections to vegetable nature fantastic creation seen from ecstatic relationship eternal learning

Greg Jalbert
Albany, California
September 28, 1995