In the Twilight Zone All I Know Is the Commercials

by

Patricia Goedicke (1931 - 2006)

from the collection:
"The Tongues We Speak", 1989

Last modified: 13 Mar 2010, 16:16-0500

Big things in the wind:
Big dirty things in the wind.

All across America is that OUR underwear
Flapping on the clotheslines are those our mangy sheets

WELL I'D LIKE TO KNOW WHOSE THEY ARE

Gleaming like Abraham Lincoln's spectacles
Are those my false teeth

Is that Thomas Jefferson's flying heartache
Do those moth-eaten buffalo belong to me

WELL I'D LIKE TO KNOW WHOSE THEY ARE

Rolling around above me like a baseball
Is that my Babe Ruth, is that MY president
Eavesdropping on the other team's plays,

Is that my scandal with the sincere hair and the baby blue eyes,
Is that my True Confessions, my tape recorder, my home-made bomb,

WELL I'D LIKE TO KNOW WHOSE THEY ARE

If I'm Committing the sin of pride please stop me,
I MEAN I'M A RESPONSIBLE CITIZEN

Every four years I vote but I can't help it,
Who can predict what will happen
In the Twilight Zone all I know is the commercials,

But if those aren't my Congressmen or my Senators
If those aren't my brown babies

If those aren't my Jews
Expelled again, from the new Eden

Getting into the same old cattlecars, and wailing
like tattered black birds across the heavens

WELL I'D LIKE TO KNOW WHOSE THEY ARE