Dealing With The Government
Bureaucrats
with their offending eyes,
sinister thick and meaty blackbirds
in gray suits,
executioners of what I want at this very moment,
hearing nothing, saying everything,
their noises as predicable as the farts of a fat man,
and with forms to fill in
for every one of my fears –
I’ve been standing in line
pecking at the floor with my shoes,
in the shadow of an austere guard
who gives fresh meaning to the word “humorless.”
The guy in front of me is quiet, introspective.
The one behind isn’t sure what he’s doing here.
Renew a driver’s license, complain about his taxes,
obtain a building permit – all meat to the grinding teeth
of authority.
Most likely, when I finally get to see somebody,
I’ll be told I’m in the wrong line.
Bureaucrats – no dead end is ever wasted.
Return From a Brazilian Excursion
I should have known the contrast would be too fierce.
Instead of the winter of my youth,
my window looks out on an alien landscape,
dark in the ascendancy.
a frosted frame to my reflection,
snowdrifts that pull their own blanketing over themselves,
and temperatures that whip the winds
into mocking my hard-earned tan
with a threat to fade it all the way to transparency.
On a biting January night,
only the stereo has my back,
its speakers broadcasting a persuasive samba,
daring my feet to move to that batucada rhythm.
Despite the cold evidence of my eyes,
I hear remnants of my tropical Eden,
feel that linen shirt floating on my chest
and the breath of a brown-skinned woman
tracing a butterfly arc from my ear to the back of my neck.
I must acquire a taste for this weather again
It must figure in my dreams.
I need to see beyond the unfriendliness
of my surrounds,
otherwise my usual affairs will feel like exile.
I must be stubborn and resist my recent memories,
feed the fireplace, smother the bed with heavy artillery blankets.
But Brazil —someone slaps the pandeiro,
strums a cavaco, rainbow birds scatter –
there’s no giving orders to yourself –
you dance, inside and out.
And there’s no window to that world.
No separation between man and what is out there.
You’re either in it or you’re not.
Right now, I am not.