smokerings

[ Lost & found: Dated Nov 3rd, 2009. ]

minutes past three,
in the room at the end of the hallway
a swell of voices breaks
the air and pushes mahogany doors
away, breaks
into the corridor,
notices pinned to a board
(Olmert tonight, 8pm at Mandell, JavaJive!,
want to make $20 in five minutes?)
rustle against the thunder.
surely they could've offered
poli-sci twenty-eighty: political parties in
a dying state, or
losing gracefully for nationalists.
i wonder what happens then,
to the parks planning board,
the municipal buildings and courts,
what happens to the constitution and the
lawyers who studied it.
surely nations deserve a pension plan
for historians.

*

poets,
in a dying world, are almost
immediately idiomatic.
their careers, thankfully,
are secure.