Snowstorm looming
And in another corner of the world,
mascots relax at a sports bar
comparing oversized headdresses
& exchanging tips
on how to use a public toilet
in a chicken outfit.
Did you ever want to punch a mascot
just to see if he/ she would stay
in character while chasing you
through a stadium? The mist
that haloes you takes a rain check
on me, just as the years of nibbled horizons
have taken off my varnish. In a hearth home
out there, Dan Quayle is laughing
at a blooper show
& what the ex-veep & me share
in this alienated foyer
is that at least three of our ‘friends’
regard us as tarnished residents of Chelm.
The snowstorm ‘they’ are ‘all’
talking ‘about’ is a theoretical
construct sez the CNN
weathergal. Robbins Reef Light
[ see note ]
is real as it passes across my glasses.
So is the Andrew J. Barbieri
on its way to Manhattan. Philosopher
Quine is ‘real’, too, but very ‘dead’, his
former students including retired folksinger Tom Leher
& ex-Unabomber Ted Kacysinski.
12.29.00
__________
Chelm — a town of fools & simpletons,
according to Yiddish folklore.
Poem
Let the phone keep ringing, I’m
a bottle washer
for the tribe. My business
is my business, the limits
are what I’m given
to work with. I reject
the prophetic vocation, just
happy enough to amplify
the social dance. ‘Hey, Joe,’
crooned Hendrix. Next-benches’ tourists
shout ‘Statue of Liberty’
posing as the ferry churns past.
Do I need to comment
on this planet of missing interns
& pop star confectionery? I buy into ‘it’
waytoo much, though even Stalin
enjoyed Donald Duck’s imperialist
reign. I want to say one
last more thing but all that connects
is John Lee Hooker serenading
Charon The Ferrytender with
his last big hit:
‘Money is pretty exciting, you know.’
Entering Whitehall Terminal
I must have been
the breaking point 38th guy
that evening
-- that sort of slob who
casually leaves
his newspaper
on the beat wood benches--
because I felt
a tug on my coat
& saw a pissed-off clean-up guy
behind me
handing back
the innards
of my NY Times.
The guy had sort of a point
but I did not have the time
for a theatrical explanation
as to why I was making
his sad job
sadder.
I put Section D, Automotive
under an armpit
& walked off the Andrew J. Barbieri
focused on what had-to-be
a reincarnation
of the Honorable Elijah Mohammed
walking a pair
of yam-colored Florsheims.
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