1.
The pop-up ad
Tells me to escape now.
And in my mind,
I want to flee.
I need to escape,
I need to run away,
Before the unmentionable happens.
So what if the add is for cheap
Airline tickets,
I must escape.
2.
I drove down to Seattle last week,
To go to a
Hole-in-the-wall bead store.
I passed a house
With a small front yard.
Patches of grass
Grew sparsely.
In the middle of the yard
Was a picket sign,
Bright yellow with black words saying:
Question Everything.
And now I do.
3.
I went to Subway
To get me a sammich,
And there was this old guy,
I don't think he was a bum,
He was just standing around,
Smoking a cigarette.
As I was about to enter the restaurant.
He grabbed my arm,
Looked into my eyes.
He had piercing blue eyes
That scared me and intrigued me altogether.
He had a worn, yet kind face,
He must have been a real sweetheart
When he was younger.
My heart was racing.
He pulled me closer to him and said,
“YOU, don't ever be a servant to the lord.
He wants YOU to do greater things.
Pray, but do NOT obsess over religion.
Stay the way YOU are!”
He let go and I walked inside, heart beating fast.
I paused, turned back, and he had gone.
Where, I don't know.
So I said to the lady working there,
“Does he say that to everyone?”
Her eyes bewildered, she answered,
“Who?”
4.
On a tin of altoids,
It is stated that they are
Curiously Strong.
My will,
Is
Curiously Strong.
5.
Everyone asks me what message I want to send to the youth.
…
“Change the world, not yourself.”
February 27, 2004
Suge
*With #1, I was on this site and this pop-up ad just kept popping up and it was funny but it evoked all this thought and I remembered all the other signs with hidden meanings and thus, this poem was born.