August 01, 2003

get dirty

she said to get dirty you needed to find life
the part of it that no one looked at,
the people overlooked.
she said get lost in the city,
like she did it every weekend whenever she got bored,
it made me regret ever moving back to the country.
she said get lost in the poorest part of the city
the part that cant afford to clean its self. but,
it's different here, in the terracotta clay.
poor is not eccentric like it is in the city.
we have family of three, still squatting the same corner
as last week. same corner, different sign.
the VA's downtown, but the legless wonders pushNpull themselves
down the streets early morns. there before 7, never miss a beat.
we've got grandpa's and families, not crackheads and whores
depressing is the mind that i find my self reliving.
someone said, 'you just had to learn how to turn your head, and look at the ground.
if they can't see your eyes, they don't know they're winning." I hate
him for that.
we could become so easily senseless over some1.
days seemed different when the homeless man sing his wows outside my window.
then he was funny, then i was amused.
he might have been a painter, or a daddy far from home.
i'll never know. it took the terracotta color
of the dirt outside my world
to bring me back to realize
the world is not my pep show.
she said, "a brilliant man asked if he wanted a great poem for a
dollar?"
she took two.

before - after