Imagination

men and women finally break.
men and women
deliberately abandon their
loved ones in madhouses
sedated or
electrified
until they die.

cats kill cats at
3 a.m. in the morning
chewing off the front
legs and opening the
throat
leaving stiffened fur
and still forms
for any collector of
garbage and life
past gone.

so many wish to be kind
and understanding
so many wish to act educated
and knowing
so many use the word
love
as if they meant
it.

and too many believe it
when they hear it.

our chances are negated
by our very desire to
be kind.

we’ve got to raise taxes
so we can feed and
clothe and amuse
all those
in madhouses and elsewhere
who believed in love
when there was so
little
there.

sometimes you climb out of bed in the morning and you think,
I’m not going to make it, but you laugh inside
remembering all the times you’ve felt that way, and
you walk to the bathroom, do your toilet, see that face
in the mirror, oh my oh my oh my, but you comb your hair anyway,
get into your street clothes, feed the cats, fetch the
newspaper of horror, place it on the coffee table, kiss your
wife goodbye, and then you are backing the car out into life itself,
like millions of others you enter the arena once more.

you are on the freeway threading through traffic now,
moving both towards something and towards nothing at all as you punch
the radio on and get Mozart, which is something, and you will somehow
get through the slow days and the busy days and the dull
days and the hateful days and the rare days, all both so delightful
and so disappointing because
we are all so alike and so different.

you find the turn-off, drive through the most dangerous
part of town, feel momentarily wonderful as Mozart works
his way into your brain and slides down along your bones and
out through your shoes.

it’s been a tough fight worth fighting
as we all drive along
betting on another day.