Today at 59 (I saved the world)
Today I am fifty-nine
For the first time fifty-nine
Today I bought a bunch
Of flowers
To the florist: Expensive flowers please,
A birthday bouquet for a boy
So she chose wood and thorns and shades of blue.
Today I took myself out for lunch
Wood oven pizza
Thin crust, well done like me
A small salad and good wine.
Today I wrote a poem so sad and strong
it made me cry
Immune to my words thought I
but this one
So powerful it could melt the world
In tears.
To save the world I tried to shred the thing
The shredder overheat and jammed
Oily parts flowed like blood, like tears, like,
I pulled on the poem
The shredder would not let go
I want it back I screamed to the machine
Give me back my poem those words are mine
To release the words
could melt the world in tears
But the shredder groaned
it cried
the words
Tore at its big rusty heart
Made it live then die in a flash of smoke
Razor blades and a confetti of words.
So I took the words
I threw them to the wind
The clouds came
The rains came
The words poured down the street and flowed away
In a wail of weeping and wind.
In the sewers alligators
shed real tears
the words flowed to sea
mixed with the salt and were gone.
At fifty-nine I saved the world.
