Back When

Just a crappy little poem I wrote the other day when I couldn't sleep.


I bet you could see more constellations
before we learned to turn hillsides into suns
Night was darker back when
back when electricity was fire in the sky, was
snake tongues of light tasting clouds

I want to climb a mountain and look down
find Orion's reflection in the city
The Northern lights as the twinkle change of
synchronized traffic signals
Make a wish on the freeway cars as they burn by

It was probably simpler
Midnight trysts meant more
They weren't sterilized in incandescence
or washed out with cold fluorescent glow
LED screens sucking away at souls

This is a digital age of plastic and chrome
Everything gets vacuum packed and sent off
in another satellite to streak across the horizon
Yeah, I bet you could see more constellations
back when