WHATEVER HAPPENED TO DEFIANCE?

People you will never want to know

are telling you to vote, enlist,

invest, travel to Acapulco,

buy now and pay later, smoke,

stop smoking, curb your dog,

remember the whale and praise

the Lord.

Like windshield wipers

they repeat themselves.

Because

they tell but never ask, you learn

to live around them just to live.

You understand why Paul Gaugin

preferred Tahiti to the bourgeoisie

of France.

But then Tahiti’s

not the answer anymore,

and frankly never was.

This leaves

you weighing Schulberg’s waterfront

philosophy: “You do it to him

before he does it to you.”

Reactionary, you admit, but nature’s

way, the way of this world

where he who wins is always

he who loses least and last….

But if you’re bored of triumph

through attrition, imitate you may

the strategy of Puck.

Listen

carefully to all solicitations, smile

and respond in classical Greek.

It’s devious, but then it gives

you time to smell the always

breathing flowers.

Or to watch

dissolve into the mystery of coffee

the faceless dice of sugar

cubes.

Or say just how

remarkable it is that every

evening somewhere in this world

a play of Shakespeare’s being staged

with nothing to be won but excellence.

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