There’s never enough time
to get your brain quite in shape
for the ruckus you think you’ll be making,
but isn’t that the beauty of a weekend
in the city, full of tourists
and misinformed pedestrians?
You see them wander, aglow
with their ignorance
of the proper rules of the road.
But they’re having fun,
and that’s all they can do
with their addled brains
in the hot Summer sun.
There’s an agent belonging to change
at this very establishment! I can’t
quite configure the software setup for it,
but I know there’s untapped potential.
If I bring it up to a shrewd individual,
I need to make sure that I trust them.
An idea is just an idea, but a business
is capitalism seeing potential to exploit
that idea for material gains.
And that is where a visionary
differs from a profiteer.
Can the argument be made that we’re both equal
when exploitation has the floor?
The person with the deepest checking account
gets the final say in development.
So they take what they think
makes the biggest improvement
in the lives of those they understand.
Their scope graces friends and immediate interests
satisfied with keeping it in their own back yards.
This is the plague of the ignorant people
whose parents made industry what it is today.
They live with their privilege taken for granted.
Å: Excuse me, do I know you?
A: You do if you want to, but I can’t put my finger on where I’ve seen you before.
Å: The park?
A: You’ll need to be more specific. I go to… I go to many parks.
Å: Kennedy Memorial?
A: Odd time to talk about fallen presidents. No, I haven’t gone.
Å: No, the park on the west side.
A: Oh, right! Uh… no, haven’t been there in… ever.
Å: Do you even go to parks?
A: When I feel like it.
Å: Which is when, exactly?
A: When I feel like it.
Å: I’m starting to think I don’t want to know you.
A: Wait, please. I’m just trying to entertain you with foolishness and show you that my earnest side is actually quite pleasant.
Å: How does foolishness show me that you’re earnest?
A: Look at my eyes.
Å: They’re greenish brown.
A: Hazel. Like yours.
Å: Mine are bluish green.
A: Still hazel. I’m an expert on the subject.
Well,
I won’t tip you
if you’re gonna be a dog.
You have perfectly good thumbs,
why don’t you just
toss my luggage into the elevator?
I’d do it myself,
but I don’t have thumbs.
Bend
your succulent
orphan mentality
to make
rainbow belt
ostrich meat
plentiful.
How often?
In a trance I reside,
blind without my cave and useless
without my unfolded shoelace temper tantrums.
I would skate
if momentum provided the pleasure a tether
can give.
I pull on restraints, gnash teeth,
fall below
where I thought was appropriate
for a creature of my caliber. But
there’s always room
for an unexpected curse
and a living room
comprised of nothing
but fleas.
Didn’t the union
of our cat
with our possum hold us
all to a higher standard?
Under all this high pressure
and performance constraints,
we can reach for our goblets
and salute to our health.
That’s all we ever seem
to have going for us anyhow.
WHARVED 