there’s nothin in new york
there’s nothin new in a new city
sometimes i think to live life
i won’t be able to stop for too long
in a single city, single bus stop
in poulsbo people were gun-
toting republicans or liberals
by name only saying yes to
the me too movement but
ignoring the girl who got raped
there’s the same sort of complex
duplicity in san francisco where
everyone it seems like in hippie
circles is mostly white and there is
bizarre cultural appropriation
without recognition or representation
of rich culture behind it in all
the overpriced yoga spiritual shops
and people in poulsbo got mad
at governor inslee when he said
they had to wear masks and
here people are too chill they just
don’t wear them because of a weird
pseudo sense of brotherhood
or something that justifies it
and people drink lots of wine
and it’s all beautifully american
but also lonely and empty inside
and sometimes you point out the
more complicated part of what
you call “characters” here in
california like eugene in your song
nothing can be simple in santa cruz
or poulsbo or anywhere i think
once people get stuck in one place
they bleed into its bubble of
beliefs and comfort zones
like when kerouac said there’s nothin
in new york or when cavafy sad
another city another shore it’s all
the same streets you walked before
if you walked them wrong with a
pebble of emptiness inside your shoe
when you’re young you think leaving will
fix all the broken bits inside but
really you have to rebuild that
city separately, and take it with you
i think being on the road helps, though
never getting stuck in the
bubbles that form in all these
cities, making connections but
leaving before you feel the sticky
cell membranes of social order
start to stick you too hard
to your skin — you’ve gotta
get goin down the road
for a new city of nothin new at all
