bienvenue (a poem)

.

if you lost your list on your way here

i will help you get what you came for.

a fabric that holds its weight, waders

to fish for baubles, noisemakers that

can knock all the boys from their feet,

and these things will be yours alone.

.

but you sigh. you sigh, and you say

my effort just isn't good enough, and

in one infinite exhale of expectations

i become small and burrow into myself,

quietly raging like a boobytrap.

and it happens again, and again, and it

builds, and it will become more. it will

be louder, and it will be brightly colored

and "it" will become "i" and i will be the

master of ceremonies describing what

is about to go down.

.

it will start with a song and it will end

with a traffic jam and i will never again be less,

and i will pose in the center of the freeway

and i will walk-off conquering;

for me, safe behind the sandbags, alone,

drinking what i came for, as the bombs go off.