i won't give up the ocean
or the voice
and so i swim
with the fishes
and become grim
with the dishes
squandering powers
falling with the towers
turning a poem about the sea
into a song about having been
american
candid once
performing shaken
spelled and misspelled
quelled and quelled
under the desk like a nuclear drill
drilling and drilling
and thrilling the enthralled
to love the pall
that comes over the mind
when capital feels capital
and develops the fear and expectation
that the lottery number might finally
be un-stalled
and that big house on the hill
could finally
be finally
finally
and that is what keeps the people
from being people
those sweet numbers
that might undo
this numbness
and this poem also
apparently wants its poet
to explicit politics
and become as third a person
as can become
an unbecoming person
that is why i write where
the people are
i want to share the scars and the stars
and the rhythmic geometries
of faces and bodies and voices
sharing our sense of the elegant
and the elephant
which leg and which leg
of the journey that journeys
until we together again
gurneying to the end of the hall
Roman Ryan 