I bought a new red sweatsuit
to keep myself in the game.
It worked like the worst kind of music.
Birds kept flying past my head.
I skipped my dentist appointment.
Eventually
I thought I’d meet up
with the visions all those poets
promised. You know who I’m
talking about: William Carlos Williams,
Edgar Cayce, Mr. C.W. Post.
Broken rhymes for a broke-down time.
At night we’d roll the ice cream man
down his wooden slide
and lock him up inside
his broke-down ice cream house.
We didn’t try to pry out all his secrets,
but drove away, hardly noticing the snow.
from The Waste Land and Other PoemsFind more by John Beer at the library
Copyright © 2010 John Beer
Used with the permission of Canarium Books.