in retrospect it all sounds so funny
he threw a
coin into a well
& wished
for money
he regretted
that he let it go
before he
even finished the throw
he
immediately wondered how often in the past he had done that before
& how
much it had cost him to have a desire for more
he sang at
the top of his lungs with the record album on the jukebox
he killed
time mercilessly but he loathed murderers as much as he doubted priests
he watched
the news broadcast nightly with a hand over one eye
every minute
of footage drove him closer to tears
he expected
each & every scene to end in fire
he carried a
pencil to draw pictures of the world that he wanted to see
& to
write down the words he was too scared to say aloud
he never
read the numbers on the currency but he always remembered the faces
he tried to
avoid listening to conversations around him
&
hunched over to prevent people from looking over his shoulder
even though
he knew that they would see it all eventually
& he
knew that he had heard it all before
he was relieved
when he looked up from his notebook & across the bar
& saw the
promotional calendar for the local liquor distributor taped to the mirror
in exactly
the place where he expected to look himself right in the eyes
but instead
he got to stare at a pretty girl in a cute little dress for far too long
so it was
easy for him to recognize what makes it all funny in retrospect when he thinks
about
how much he
thinks about the future & how little he understands how to get there
soon the
blackness will burn away from the tainted seas
& the sky
will be red upon reflection of the flames
soon there
will be another great howl from the poets
another
universal chant
another name
for the spirits & their forces & the muses & the deities combined
another
glorious simplification
another fine
union of forms & styles
soon their
will be too many tragic historical dates for the wall painted in memorial
&
shortly thereafter those walls will crumble
& the
survivors will wonder where to mourn those moments
& the
mourners will wonder where to survive
but the
salty stains on the cheeks of the concrete cherubs
will always
remain & the laughter will linger, too
on the
facades of the government buildings & the lofty cathedrals ceilings
the echoes
will resound again & again & again
& again
the children will giggle, guffaw, grope, grab, grapple
& again
raise their voices higher than intended
& belie
their secrets to the strangers they befriended accidentally
somehow this
history will continue
in
retrospect it all sounds so funny
but it is
all so sad & very true