From Nerve Cowboy #20, Fall 2005

PLAYING POOL WITH SOCRATES

 

Tennessee Williams once drank a glass of lemonade

Ludwig Van Beethoven

cried

as he thought of a lock of a woman's hair

Van Gogh

dug potatoes

a fly flew in through a window and landed on Dostoevsky's

nose

somehow it keeps me going

when I hit lowest

Eugene O'Neill in an undershirt

Churchill

in a roller coaster car

Plato

with a piece of lamb stuck between his teeth

Arthur Miller sawing a piece of wood

I know it's there even in the pebbles in the street

all the magic

of the universe

Mozart walking around a corner and bumping into a lady

carrying a bag of onions

Newton

pouring water into a tea kettle

Leonardo Da Vinci

forgetting where he put his shoes

who can say no

to such a universe?

I pick up the tube of toothpaste

and squeeze

wondering how Shakespeare

might have done it.

 

 

Fred Voss

Long Beach, CA