No Crusade

I've been having some vivid dreams lately. A few nights ago, I had one about Bruce Wayne kind of failing to become Batman. But only kind of. Gotham City was partially deserted and lawless. Bruce was still putting together the materials to become Batman but he didn't have quite the enthusiasm, and from the state of the city, I could kind of see why. I saw lots of deserted streets and debris. It was the Robert Pattinson Bruce Wayne and I saw him in a simpler mask and costume. Does the city need a Batman if it's barely a city anymore?

I had another dream that same night about my hometown, Santee, California, also partially deserted and cluttered with debris. The trains weren't running so I couldn't get from the grocery store and back home. When I woke up, I remembered it's only since I moved to Japan I've regularly been taking trains places. There was a never a train from the particular grocery store I remembered.

Seems like political commentary, doesn't it? It's not so different from how I remember the U.S. being just before I left for Japan. Everything I read indicates things have gotten worse. It makes me sad to read about how shopping malls are dying. I read a few days ago the Wal-Mart was closing at Parkway Plaza Mall in El Cajon. I remembered when Wal-Mart opened there I felt like it was a sign of the place's degradation. Now Wal-Mart's too good for it! I read one article about a couple of girls who stole a whole cartload of goods quite brazenly. They loaded it all into their car and weren't stopped until a cop pulled them over on the freeway. Employees, of course, wouldn't have stopped them because the employees are told not to do anything. I've heard cops, in many cities, aren't supposed to chase thieves either. Doesn't anyone think there's a relationship between this and the fact that everything's getting impossibly expensive? I suppose it's a chicken and the egg question.

X Sonnet #1848

The sooty sky defies the rival sun.
But pleased, the suns defer to pregnant dust.
Through pigment portals, rubber legs'll run.
Accepting ceilings feed the spring of lust.
A quarry dives beyond the distant hill.
In want of sleep, the witch defers a day.
A dirty cloud congealed to make a will.
A sort of sea combined to make a bay.
The slowly loading rain distorts the wife.
To husband seeds demands a rainy time.
Productive soil draws the bounds of life.
Another tuber starts its lonely climb.
Contentious dreams confirm the falling sky.
The amber past consoles the frozen fly.