Occasional Poem
Outside again, i gazed at signs
crackling in FINNIGAN’S windows:
BUD MILLER LITE YUENGLING
PETE’S WICKED BREW.
Then evening’s coolness
or was it the full moon
glowing through filmy clouds
reminded of signs more subtle:
pavement as a place where i should walk, or stagger;
3rd Street as a place where i might ride;
and FINNIGAN’S itself
a zoo of citizens guzzling.
Philadelphia, indeed―
this city notorious
for liberty and its coarse edges―
came to me then as a gift of symbols
like a world of found words,
and every word had a different meaning,
and every word willy-nilly meant desire.