this Fine Modern Life

i’ve never seen a grenade

explode in person

but still somehow i know

the impersonal truth

is explicit and graphic

and my fine modern life

will fracture the very same way

and four thundering years

of seven different strains

have blistered and knifed

and buried in coal

any mind I had before

we caffeinate, capitulate

and care less and less

unless our shrapnel

can be pawned for gold

our blood-blackened rubble sold

this for gasoline

that for guarantees

that we will always be beholden

always be distracted

absolutely incapable

of finding the traction

to just drive home

to just reconstruct

til everything

is one once more

til we are no longer

at war