Living in San Francisco, I've been there for 20 years now,
something would occur, not infrequently, and that would be,
I'd be walking down the street and a total stranger
would take me for somebody that they were intimate
with, that they knew, that--
hey, how are you?
Nice to see you again, or whatever.
So this would happen over and over
and I finally decided, why don't I,
for the pleasure of an audience, put it all together in one poem?
All right, see what a bargain that is?
OK.
This is called "Addis Ababa."
Where is Addis Ababa?
So a little geography lesson.
Thank you.
Is it the capital?
Yes, it is.
And it's a very, very nice.
You get an award afterwards.
Talk to Alison.
It's a very Islamic city.
Did you know that?
Yeah.
You just had Ethiopian food tonight?
So synchronicity abounds.
This is what you're trying to tell me?
OK.
"Addis Ababa."
I like this poem for one simple reason,
and maybe I shouldn't be talking like this, but hey, I'm here,
I'm going to talk.
And that is, it got me thinking who are you really?
I mean, are you given-- do have an identity when
you're all alone?
Or is it only--
does it only exist when you're out in the world?
And the world reflects back to you, a sense of who you are.
"Addis Ababa."
I'm nobody until I leave my house.
Then a man for whom the street is
the house he is bound to tips his old trucker's hat in passing
and wishes me a Happy New Year, Your Honor.
I shall return his good cheer with some fast food-cum-booze
money, though he hasn't asked for any,
though the spare change that has trickled down into my pocket
is too spare to trickle into his.
At the bank the teller with eternal pout smiles warmly,
calls me sir, says what a pleasure it is to see me again.
Suddenly, I'm a magnate of invisible means.
Still, I cross the street quickly when I catch the wild
eye of a bristle-face, he of the unbuttoned cuffs,
trailing shirttail, untied shoelace,
as though he saw me coming--
his would-be patron, his answered prayer--
and rushed to dress for the occasion.
Please, Allah, I have a job, I swear--
Addis Ababa Market, between Turk and Eddy--
but they say first I must have shave and shower.
I go to YMCA, or YWCA it doesn't matter, depending on your bent.
They say $5 for shave and shower--
and already I'm turning away, wondering what the hell I pay
my worthless bodyguards for--
Please, Allah, you give me the $5
and I promise you, next week you come
to Addis Ababa, between Turk and Eddy,
and you will have your money back,
and by now he has secured my arm,
so I pull out a bill so crisp I could cut his hairy throat.
But he counters with another tack.
No Allah, $5, I beg of you, please, Allah,
and the beggar drops smoothly to his knees,
as eons of tradition demand.
The lunching law students, the sweet-smelling future wanglers
of America, are only mildly interested in this type
of negotiation, but I urge him to get up, get up.
I have to shout at him to take the little I'm offering,
which is better than the nothing I imagine he's used to--
and he does, though perfunctorily, no thank you,
no smile, no more invocations of the deity,
his zeal reserved for an easier mark.
And months later, in a city that is not Addis Ababa,
I am back to not being a circuit judge or an oil sheikh,
but still hear that nagging please, Allah, please, Allah,
rising through me as through a minaret:
the open arches far above the stone
floor, the filthy rich and the dirt poor
prostrate on the same prayer rug,
bowing to an ancient and intricate design,
the light with its thin fingers touching every one of them.