| Poems of World War III |
-------------Charles Levenstein |
| Hometown
Distraction mounts in great piles, like clothes made ready for the laundry, futile attempts to distinguish dark from light, the inevitable Kleenex tucked away in a forgotten pocket destined to undo all effort at organization, the new order of laundry as dismal a notion heard since the fall of the Soviet Union. Apparently the only word for facial tissue in Spanish is "Kleenex". I invented "paper of the nose" to the vast amusement of clerks at Hometown bodega - where I bought a roll of duct tape, not to line my shelter, but as the only solution to the disintegration and diffusion of Kleenex throughout dark laundry: black chinos, navy shirts, socks, the most intimate of items, adorned with flecks in a synthetic blizzard. The Hometown chief reported over 1000 phone calls about anthrax one week after the national scare, investigations unearthing forgotten Tide, Bisquick, talcum (uncontaminated by asbestos, we hope), fearsome white powders other than that snorted by affluent citizens who knew better than to invite police into their high tech homes. Hometown is not under siege, although the beating of three Indian students by local patriots might give that impression. I secret my cache of once-washed Kleenex fragments to avoid the eyes of spies searching for Ahmed Rosenberg. When I was a youth, my mother hid The People's Songbook so I would not sing commie songs at college and waste my young life at Leavenworth. Now I scour my home for Middle Eastern treasures, olive wood camels, varnished sunflower seeds, posters with strange scribbling might frighten Homeland Security. I do not say Shalom for fear they'll hear Salaam and search my shoes for bombs or other secret messages. I worry for the baby boomers who missed the valuable training provided by the Red Scare of the 1950's. Of course I am frightened. I did not send a poem for peace to the White House, not merely because I knew the statistics on dysfunctional illiteracy. No, I am a squawking chicken, afraid of oil, afraid of pharmaceuticals, afraid of crazy Christians who ache for a new crusade. I worry about the children of Iraq, but fear Homeland Security. On the other hand, the old people's homes in Hometown are going bankrupt, so prison for senior citizens may become an aspect of retirement planning. Will there be shuffleboard at Alcatraz? Hootin' Annies at Sing-Sing? I do not write political poems. I write kitchen crap and confessions. This is not about politics. It's about our goddam lives. |
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