Well, this next poem.
Well, it was actually a two-poem,
which I have managed to get down to 2/3 of a page.
I'm happy to report.
It's called Change My Evil Ways.
Some days, it is my one wish to live alone, nameless,
unfathomable, a drifter or unemployed alien.
But that day, the movie was over.
I found myself walking in Cambridge.
And on the common, there were some conga players, as well as
the guys with xylophones with finger pianos and tambourines.
Have you ever seen minnows flopping from shallow
to shallow, doing somersaults?
The drummer's hands were pale fish
like guppies thrashing light in a clear plastic bag,
as blurred as children careening around
lawn sprinklers in the careening mercuric blue dusk of August.
Dulse wavering.
Hair shook out while somebody dances.
Some days, it isn't a life alone I need.
But one that supplies the luxury of forgiveness.
It was a day like that.
Luckily, past the tobacconist, a kid
sang his song about changing my evil ways
and strummed a three chord blues plugged into a boom box that lay
at his side like a wolfhound.
And I put my ear close to his snout.
And a little cautious at first, I began to listen.