Musings on the less fortunate

A muttering, dusty figure,

slumped forward on the sidewalk.



Where others quicken pace,

afraid you'll rape them

or ask for money,

I pause a moment

to place my patent-leather briefcase down and

check my Cartier wristwatch.



I look at you with your

manic, oscillating eyes and

toothless mouth leaking crack residue to the

ground below.



Perhaps in some trans-dimensional world

you stand above other men,

a philosopher-God whose

schizophrenic ravings are

recorded as Holy sermon.



Others stammer and tremble,

awed by your vast, unknowable intellect,

which is unjustly vilified in this civilized world.



But most likely not.



I move along,

suddenly fearful that I might be stabbed and robbed.

it's not bad but it's kinda hard to understand...big words....gah not every one knows what those mean

Bob,


I'm not sure this is poetry. It seems more like a prolonged aphorism than a sustained engagement with metaphor, metonymy, etc. It's a group of descriptions that don't rise above their material ground: there's no revelatory moment when the whole thing turns itself over, no point where deeper inquiry proves rewarding (at least, not to me).

It strikes more as a snapshot of the current American ideo-political stance--"Ah, yes, I 'know' you are not really to be feared - and indeed you might well have the potential to be a truly beautiful soul - but nevertheless...[I don't believe it]."

I'd suggest taking the idea above the level of direct embodiment in an experience, since it simply pronounces the rise of a belief rather than evoking it (and that's the real purpose of poetry, isn't it? to evoke, not to declare or interrogate...).


Take care,
Brad