Two Trains Running
Wrapped in Kevlar he looked larger
than he was, though
gracious, magnanimous.
He let me know he could have
towed my van,
arrested me.
Today he’d cut me a break.
I moved the van,
the bus could pass,
people could get home from church.
In the rush to get my wheelchaired
wife out of the van,
into the theater,
I hadn’t noticed the NO PARKING sign.
We’d been shut-ins
first from COVID
then from legs-don’t-work.
I wasn’t friends anymore with
the blare and bluster
of sun and street and traffic.
They stopped the play
at Act 1, Scene 2, after
Wilson’s oracular line:
When you get to be a saint
there ain’t nothing
else you can do but die.
The theater-man hand-patted my back—
There’s a cop,
there’s a bus;
it looks bad.
The cop let me go,
because my wife’s crippled?
because we’re white?
Two trains are running,
one for whites,
one for blacks.
One travels north, the other south,
cars old and rusty,
tracks worn out.
The Thing about Nature
It’s always okay.
A leaf doesn’t have a political party.
When a leopard breaks a gazelle’s neck
with its teeth, it’s not murder.
A flood forges a new path forward.
Blizzards coat the prairie like frosting on a cake.
No one knows where a waterfall lands
when it falls.
A peony doesn’t believe in the death penalty.
Every fish swims with another fish.
Supernovas firework space/time.
The Milkey Way was there before
we named it.
Particles appear, disappear, and reappear
out of nowhere.
Densities explode.
Stars collapse all the time.
Everything starts over.
The Big Bang was just an intermission.
Birthday
What did Freud want for his birthday?
A box of fresh Brazilian cigars?
A new disciple who would never question him?
What about Plato?
A glimpse past the cave’s opening?
A ray of wisdom’s sun?
And Keats, what would he want for his big day?
The perfect ode?
His own ancient Grecian urn?
Would Mozart want a wild party, a good French wine,
A lithe woman,
Or just the right notes?
As for me, I want pancakes—
Specifically, pigs in a blanket
At iHop.
The nature of truth,
The perfect poem,
Each line alive with meaning and brilliance,
Could never compete with those
Juicy sausages swaddled by iHop’s classic cakes,
Slathered by a lava-flow of their fake maple syrup.
364 days of the year I strive
For excellence, search
For truth, live the life of an earnest man.
On that one day, my birthday,
I give way to the simple pleasures
Of pork fat and griddle cakes.
The perfect notes never heard,
The perfect ode never written
The bright light of wisdom still engulfed by darkness,
But I have found the perfect breakfast.
Even the examined life may not be worth living,
But those flapjacks and sausages make it all worthwhile.
Bionote
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