Burned pipe tobacco and spent tea leaves
look amazing similar when combined
in the ash tray. I'm trying to chase a story
and chasing my apathy with scotch
and Earl Grey tea. Maybe if
that voodoo queen was correct, one of them
will tell me the future and the other
will describe the manner of my death.
I'm far less interested in the former
than I am the latter; but I have found
I have no say in the message –
merely the form in which
the message is transmitted.
And either, really would be a welcome
excuse, since writing about politicians
doesn't change the fact that they're just
politicians; small town boys and girls
who grew up and into old men and old women
who fear the future that does not include them
and who want everything to be
exactly as it was the last time they remember being
truly happy. And if I could I'd write one long article,
laying out all of their sins, and all of my sins, as if to say,
in some imperfect but decidedly specific way,
that I am tired of their games, their petty insults,
their petty behavior, and then I would just
turn my back on them let them rot on the vine
and die as the world moves on into a future that will not
include them and into a future that will someday
not include me.
But the tea leaves will not have it;
the pipe tobacco needs replenishing, the scotch bottle is handy
the music makes my mind drift, and I know that even
if I were to quit, if I were to go downstairs
the scribbled notes and the paranoia of news paper
without my byline in it would induce me back
because it is here, and only here,
that I am sure I exist.