I don’t think I can stand
By Gary Lindorff
I don’t think I can stand another disappointment.
I’m weak,
Weakened by disappointment.
So I’m watching from the outside
To see if you can weed out the free-loaders,
The addicts, the bandstanders, the ones who abandon old dogs in the alley
Before I show up with my clean white beard
To tell you a few true imperfect stories,
To make my pitch for endurance,
To believe in you
To cast my eyes up to the tower tops
And down down to the basements of Mother Earth
Where the ants are gathering for the coming storm.
You know the apples in the great barrels are all rotten
But we’re fasting anyway.
The jailor is perplexed.
His job is to feed us
And he hasn’t noticed that the walls are dissolving.
Soon he will be free as well.
So please, please
Don’t disappoint us.
When you tell what happened, to your grandchildren
You will say, those white beards came
And the ants, from deep down in the Earth fed us
When we were sleeping,
Dropping little grains of sweetness between our lips.
Dreams came,
Towers fell,
Little children sang
and sang
and sang. . .
—
Originally posted on Dave Lindorff’s political activist website, This Can’t Be Happening.
Gary Lindorff, the author of this poem, can be reached at maleotter [at] gmail.com
Artwork by me, which was posted on this site in another post, so will not be duplicated here.
Evan Lindorff-Ellery 