Canadian Whiskey
it was 1:30 am
I had been reading a psychology text
all night, pausing occasionally
for a short Hemingway story
when the environment girls called.
you know the ones
they come to your door
they tell what's wrong
with the world
and ask for your money
to fix it all
"Hi Chris, what're ya doin?"
"Doing? The usual.
Hemingway, Old Style, Mozart.
The 41st. beer.
The 38th symphony."
they invited me over
for dinner
it was some spinach and mushroom
thing and some dish
with a French
name.
I told them
I never had spinach and
I never had some dish
with a French
name, but
I'd be right over.
I got there and
ate the bizarre stuff
and it wasn't bad
but I had to sit through their talk
off Socialism and racism
and abortion and handmade items
and stuff that took my appetite
and flushed it down the toilet.
listening to them talk
of third-world countries and
obscure and absurdly unimportant
government offices,
I wondered why
they knew so much.
then one of them asked me
if there was a place
to recycle plastic
in this town
and I said, "Hell, you can
recycle anything these days."
and she said no and
something about seven plastics
and only two recyclable ones.
she knew her plastics.
just then I wished
I had the power to give
the next generation
all my best wishes
and apkac of smokes
and an old scratchy Billie
Holiday record
and I wondered
if I should think
about joining anything
before I died.
then it was Russian novelists
and I didn't know about Russian novelists
and then it was movies
and I didn't know about movies
and then it was poetry
and I knew enough
to keep my mouth shit
while the neglected earth
running blind and mad
took the poetry and
flushed it down the toilet.
and later that night
when she offered me a brandy
which turned out to be Canadian Whiskey
I felt pity and
perhaps a slight contempt
for the culturally
ignorant.
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