Written by
Erin Belieu |
This hideous,
upholstered in gift-wrap fabric, chromed
in places, design possibility
for the future canned ham.
Its genius
wonderful, circa I993.
I've assumed a great many things:
the perversity of choices, affairs
I did or did not have.
But let the record show
that I was happy.
O let the hideous chair
stand! For the Chinese apothecary
with his roots and fluids;
for Paoul at the bank;
for the young woman in Bailey's Drug,
expert on henna; and Warren Beatty,
tough, sleek stray. For Fluff and Flo,
drunk at noon, and the Am Vets lady
reading her Vogue, the cholos
on the corner where the 57 bus comes by,
for their gratifying, cool appraisal
and courtly manner when I pass.
Let the seat be comfortable
but let the chair be hideous
and stand against the correct,
hygienic, completely proper
subdued in taxidermied elegance.
Let me have in any future
some hideous thing to love,
here Boston, MA, 8 Farrington Ave.
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Written by
Edgar Lee Masters |
I was a lawyer like Harmon Whitney
Or Kinsey Keene or Garrison Standard,
For I tried the rights of property,
Although by lamp-light, for thirty years,
In that poker room in the opera house.
And I say to you that Life's a gambler
Head and shoulders above us all.
No mayor alive can close the house.
And if you lose, you can squeal as you will;
You'll not get back your money.
He makes the percentage hard to conquer;
He stacks the cards to catch your weakness
And not to meet your strength.
And he gives you seventy years to play:
For if you cannot win in seventy
You cannot win at all.
So, if you lose, get out of the room --
Get out of the room when your time is up.
It's mean to sit and fumble the cards,
And curse your losses, leaden-eyed,
Whining to try and try.
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