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 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.