april 2,2005

passing


john paul
died today and i think heaven
cried buckets for us
nor'easterner so say weather people
but what do they know anyway
i didn't subscribe to the whole notion-
infalliblity and all the rest.
but i shed a misty tear or twenty at the loss nonetheless
he was there almost as long as i was.
oh the pope-a he's a so nice...
shiny pope mobile
jeweled and bedazzled
white robes (i took them for granted)
thought of him as forever.
immortal i guess.
and how people wept in his presence
as he waved almost
always feebly,nimbly brittle
is how i will always remember
polish filmmaker
then priest
then head of rome
and i've heard that despite his apparent weakness
and the crazy amount of riches
secrecy and supremacy
he championed the cause of the poor
more so than anyone else
they love him the most
in the third world-so i've read
and there are so many poor with us.
even in america we can look very third world.
taking groceries to mill st.
felt like somewhere
so remote as the children
clung en mass and hugged
and cried at the prospect
of shampoo and toilet paper.
and i remember the young girl
sixteen or so and strung out
answering the door with her newborn.
she sat the baby down upright
on the concrete when newborns
can't sit on their own and SPLAT!
right on the back of his baby head
as she rummaged through the bag-gobbling
tearing apart the packages
and how he wailed uncomforted
and how i wailed uncomforted
abject poverty right under my nose
hard to ignore
no electricity only two blocks away
from my little bungalow
in which the lights are on 24/7
(fear of bats)
dying to eat and survive as i
(nonchalantly)
clean out the fridge and chuck all that has expired.
it's easy to forget
in quiet suburbia
easy to go on like nothing has happened
and yet i see their faces i feel them struggle
i hear them cry out to me
in the death of this man
i vow to never forget,again.