Christmas Eve, 2019

The blade runner time

didn’t start this year,

no flying cars,

but we have more artificial people than ever.

Many of them are running our supposed country,

for example.

So I’m sitting here, smoking,

waiting for the demons and imps,

the ones I usually hold at bay,

to come beating down

the walls of my mind

and demand their Christmas presents.

The bastards, they think

because they have a place in my head

they’ve earned a place in my head.

They think

it’s all about me,

but it’s all about them,

and how I’m going to try again

this year

to evict them by drowning them in eggnog.

(Brisbane, California, November and December, 2019. See my other work here and here.)