Dinner Is Served
Distracted by political intrigues
of a minor key, I let my mind
wander across a familiar mindscape
declaring my innocence and all the while
protesting the indignity and humiliation
visited upon us by the misruling class,
while wishing that I, too,
would hit the jackpot, wahoo!
When down well-known paths
I did wander, I saw cavorting
like a legion of army ants
the captains of the precincts,
the romantics of the derelicts
those with every advantage
and no inborn instinct for
compassion, trust or love.
I saw posted on the signboard,
in a familiar script, an exhortation
to invest in a lottery or similar scheme.
My heart turned instead to visions
of the sublime, recalling sojourns
at Crescent Lake or Canyon Creek Falls.
Or was it Yellowstone, Yosemite or The Arches?
The summer rains return to Monument Valley,
Making the redlands ever so much more brilliant.
When the storms pass, the heat returns, you look down
and see your footprint in the ochre mud and wonder
what dinosaur may had trod upon the same path.
You wanted a remedy, but you couldn’t even
muster up a few laughs amid the comedy.
You’ve been lassoed and hog-tied.
All you lack is the apple in your mouth
to make your capture, and the menu, complete.
---Jack Oakes |
