1217

Staring at the problems of nation-states
And the destruction of cities I decide
To go for a walk in the incipient drizzle,
The better to inform myself what book
I'll be hiding in for the next few days

Is it too much to ask (of myself, I mean)
To speak to the manager, to get to whatever
Point might need surrounding and staking
A tent over, selling cherries and the produce
That implies a whole other (nother) world

The farm where the day laborers bend
The world all this cuteness comes from
To stir me into many consecutive thank yous
Everyone going by a portrait in progress
A biography not often announced in lights

Which is all to the good! I can't see
That sign from over here by the building
Quetzlcoatl came after when I was a boy
And then Bruce Willis riding an asteroid
Ah but there are numbers on buses

(In case Dennis Hopper steals one) and
This is the most-filmed city on television
Ahead still by a lot of Baghdad and Sarajevo
And what do I care what other people think
About comic relief on the Manhattan Project

We poets are role models we poe we don't think
And with that in mind I rise from my desk
To visit the teller and look into red sours
Among the uniformly unique pretty-uglies
Taking a pass on all the problems for sale