the valerian game copyright 2004 Joseph Santini

the world is not like the world in school
the words mean not what they should mean
violence is a corrupting tool:
truth is the only American dream

truth is the lay they preach in school;
the words, corrupted, mean not what we mean;
the world is not an American tool
and violence is a lasting dream

the words (not like reality)
are schooled to the measure and cusp of a dream;
violence (unlike this world)
is a tool which dismantles what poetry means

a tool that unscrews poetry
setting the pieces of the whole apart
making the poet forget all her art
so that the poet, lacking her dream,
has only violence. what's truth
when there's time? a dim reflection
of yesterday's sun.