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April 21 |
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jeffery bahr |
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COSMOLOGY OF WANT |
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Here we all live in a state of ambitious poverty.
--Decimus Junius Juvenalis*
Seven stars line up and there's your Ursa Minor. The rest are depressed
about the rain over Climax, Saskatchewan. All that fusion going to waste
for lack of ambition. And that man with his land: The sound of a fence falling,
Picket by picket, should bring the Boadicea out in him. This smelter that's cool
to the touch doesn't mean you can't be a Greeter. I mean there's always work
somewhere. A man kills an immigrant dry cleaner, two examples of initiative. OK,
that's cold, but I have a photograph of the men of Leadville, two to a small room,
sleeping with the train mules. There's a lesson in parsimony. I live on shelter rice
and my neighbor's Swiss chard. I stand on my toilet seat and look out the window.
Each quadrant of the cross is an opportunity. Try living on trickle-down, that's all
I'm saying, and pray with the mailman. And say something gutsy like: heart
of a star. That's where the pressure is, that's where the metal's made.
*[The full name of the ancient Roman poet commonly referred to as Juvenal--ed.]
(First appeared in Court Green, 2007) |
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about the poem |
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Twenty-five years after the introduction of voodoo economics, large sections of the population still believe the poor have only themselves to blame. Nostaligia for the good old days and modern variants of Horatio Alger stories figure into the mix. This poem arose (with a small dollop of irony) from my lack of sympathy with those beliefs. |
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about the poet |
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Jeffery Bahr was a professor in the computer science departments and business schools of two California state universities, after receiving his Ph.D. from the Univesity of Southern California. Twenty-five years ago, he left academia to begin a career in the computer industry, and has served as a consultant, manager, and company founder for a variety of firms. He currently lives in Longmont and manages his small software development firm. His poetry has appeared in Black Warrior Review, Indiana Review, Iowa Review, Pleiades, and Quarterly West, among other journals. His manuscript, Anabasis, was a finalist for the Poetry Foundation's Emily Dickinson First Book Award. His website is at www.jefferybahr.com, his blog at www.whimseyspeaks.com. |
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Jeffery Bahr's website |
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