I was in Santiago, Chile last year and some of these poems
that I'll be reading come from there, as does this next one.
There's a great deal of poverty there.
And as you go down the street you're
constantly being asked for money by beggars.
And they all have these very shiny tin cups.
So you wonder about that initial outlay to pay for the tin cup.
It's called, It Does No Good.
It does no good.
Certainly, he looks foolish even preposterous.
A middle aged man in a ragged sport coat
surrounded by furniture at a stoplight, a pile of rugs,
chairs, lamps, on the sidewalk.
When the light changes and cars come to a halt,
the man holds up a chair and shouts,
"Sillas or chairs," offering them for sale.
Then the light turns green and the crowd of cars roars off.
Certainly, on every street in Santiago people
sell merchandise at stoplights, toothpaste, soap, toolboxes,
towels, extension cords, the newspaper,
even jokes about it, that the way to boost the economy
is to put up more stoplights.
But the man selling chairs sells his own chairs.
He wears a striped tie and his white shirt is clean.
He's not drunk and his embarrassed laugh
almost a giggle proves that he knows
he is doing something absurd.
It is a warm sunny day in early fall
and the smell of burning leaves mixes with the exhaust fumes.
How long did it take him to come to this?
How long did he look for a job?
How long did he borrow money?
I stand across the street and watched.
No one will buy anything.
He's too crazy.
Besides, how can you stock your car in heavy traffic
to bargain over a rug?
At first the man's hair was neatly combed.
He's thin but doesn't look starving.
When did he make up his mind?
Even his wife must have thought he was crazy and his kids,
they must have snuck from the house
early this morning completely humiliated.
Can you imagine watching your old man
hawking the tables, the TVs to Hondas and Renaults.
There's no humor in his eyes, no laughing.
They look stretched and dark from driver to driver
to driver.
No one looks back.
Just some boys across the street and me standing
in front of a butcher shop.
A man's house is an extension of himself.
He must have woken up this morning
with a plan already fixed in his head.
It probably took six trips to bring that stuff
to the stoplight.
He must have worried something might be stolen.
He must have known that any friends, relatives, any family
would think him ridiculous.
All those tables and chairs can't be worth $50,
and now they'll have to carry them back again.
Why doesn't he do something violent like smash
the furniture, throw the lamps at passing cars?
But he does nothing.
Simply stands with a small chair raised
above his head and grins.
He no longer even shouts, Sillas but just stands.
What foolish thoughts run like white mice through his brain?
It does no good to be crazy if you're poor.
No money for cigarettes.
No money for shoes.
No money for razor blades, a can of tuna fish, beer, whiskey.
No money to buy a tin cup.
[APPLAUSE]