[lit-ideas] Re: Sunday Poem


you might like to read this little piece
as i heard it
in an irish accent
why it came that way
i haven't a clue
what's a man to do

the antithesis of a french philosopher i rise
on this october occasion
to discuss modes of discourse
in silence
inside our small library where there is
first item
one fine sign hung on a wall
which says simply please vote
not vote under penalty of
or why don't you ee-juts get yer fingers out
just an invocation
like the ad i once saw in butte montana
butte beer comma
it deserves preference

the ad was probably a hundred years old
but the point stands
softness in a request gets through
contrast the crushed can underneath the euonymus line
beside my car
which deflated my celebration
of how right the world seemed
no finesse

two days later i discovered
that you can talk to jesus through parking meters
well not parking meters exactly but the technology that has replaced them 
pay and display
as i was walking to work i passed a man
who was having a conversation with christ and all his saints
pressing the add more time
button
leaning like someone in a confessional
addressing the screen

why not
good man
what better button to press

now i look up from the table where i write
and see a shrub highlighted by autumn sun
red like the burning bush
common name for the enonymus i saw outside the library
and i'm about to take off my sandals
thinking i'm being asked by someone pretty high up to sit down for a beer 
when i remember i don't believe in god
currently
so i shrug
mutter
wrong number
get on with stuff


David Ritchie,
Portland, Oregon
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