The European Dream

A friend sent me an article about a book called The European Dream. It reminded me of my deep yearning for a more humane lifestyle. How can so many people be satisfied with the dreary strip mall endless driving set-up we have here?

I wish that I could magically switch people into another person's life, like in Friday the 13th. I imagine switching George Bush with a young Iraqi mother, for just a month...

I recently saw a real life switch, of sorts, related to this article. My friend went to Italy for a month this summer. This friend and I used to talk about our future. She wanted a big house, and was fine with driving everywhere she needed to go, and basically wanted the typical consumable American dream. I, on the other hand, being a true hedonist, wanted a small house, easily maintainable yard, a co-housing like community and wanted to live where I could walk everywhere I needed to go in my daily life. Well, she came back from Italy very homesick... for Italy, where she lived in a small villa, walked everywhere she needed to go, and the shopkeepers in the stores knew her by name after just a month.

See, I'm profoundly convinced, [even of the Bushites, although I can hardly say it this soon after the HUGE disappointment!] that people are mostly good and mostly smart. I think most people would definitely prefer the European dream, they just haven't experienced what it could be like.

5 More Minutes

It's 9:30
I have waited an hour for you.
You, who have waited
So many minutes, added up to
Hours
for me.

5 more minutes.

Exhaustion

It's almost 9:30
The moon is squashed.
I have sat in my car
Waiting for...
YOU
To laugh with me, and play and maybe
Rub my feet.
An exhaustion has set in
That is deeper than the day,
I just now realized what it is...
It is the exhaustion of a long journey
With no end in sight.
A journey like my journey up
Mt Timpanogus, under a midnight moon
Where the scaling of the peak
Reveals
Just another peak to climb.
And this journey, that I've been climbing since my childhood, is:
"Where will I find my love?" and even more,
"When will I find my home?"

If I Write 10 Thousand Poems

If I write 10 thousand poems
How many of them
Have to be good?
Not this one, I guess.
Dolly Parton's my muse
Prolific country song-writer
A smart lady
Laughing
In her overdone make-up
She gets the joke.
She told it!
And behind that
Is some beautiful music,
And a giant bra,
Flapping in the wind.

A poem, while I'm waiting

I've been here about...
50 minutes
Now that's ridiculous
And though I've been spinning ideas,
I may have been wasting my time.
If you don't show soon.
This is when a cell phone would come in handy,
You are late
For our un-appointment.
My drop by.
In a year of knowing you,
You have never once dropped by,
That is what I tell myself nights that I leave your place angrily,
And drive home,
With a drive just long enough
To turn my hurt pain into anger into self-righteousness into resolve into
Moving on.