I’m just a fool now.
Writing on corners.
Not like the hypocrites.
Not like the horders
of slogans
and adverts
and tubs of
dried gravy
and blankets
and wool skirts
from Grandma’s
days in the Navy.

Nope.
Just a fool that’s
as foolish
as fools does.
Dreaming of things is
as foolish
as fools was.
When being seen strangely
was merely unique.
And writing on corners was
was nothing you’d seek
to poke fun at
and run at
with sticks
and with stones.
When poets
were more than just
pens and strange bones.

If poets are foolish
and wasting their time
writing with meter
writing with rhyme
or with
none
of those
things
and with
little besides
but beating
of hearts
and hearts
beating
blood
tides
to drive them before them
on their lonely waves
slave to their words
and wordhorses
as slaves
then I am
a fool and a poet
besides
writing on corners
. . .
believing my lies
. . .

(sharp intake of breath)

(pause dramatis)

If I am a fool,
for believing in art,
believing in love,
with my words in my heart,
should all of the world
be then foolish well?
Or continue to believe
that this heaven is hell?

Fools.