Probation Poem February 5
A man in a black suit
skateboards across
the parking lot
of the probation office.
He sports a blue and gold striped tie.
He’s wearing orange knee pads
and red, white and blue sweatbands.
He’s wearing one orange sneaker and one black one.
He’s carrying a black briefcase in one hand
and a cigarette in the other.
He takes a drag off the cigarette.
His hair is long and streaked with gray.
He’s older than I am.
It’s raining.
The American flag looks spent.
The sweatbands have more spirit.
The weather machine atop the office
records the salient data of weather.
No such machine for humanity.
I am that machine.
Walt built me into it.
I am reading Walt Whitman
in the car.
I’ve got my supplies for the Walt
writing workshop with me.
I may spring it on the men
today.
I want to be the only person
in the history of probation
in America
who conducts a five-minute
writing workshop inside
a probation office.
We’ll write with
golf pencils
on the back of
William Blake postcards.
We may sing.
No one will hear us.
Who will show or not show today?
Of course, one might show
but not truly appear.
I’ve seen that.
Walt wrote:
I announce a life that shall be copious, vehement, spiritual, bold.
I read that line again.
Everything around me here
rallies to defeat my announcement.
I feel I’m losing belief in Walt.
I’m losing faith
in my ability to care.
I hadn’t wavered until now.
Something in the sweatbands did it.
It’s not funny anymore.
It’s not poetry.
The machine in me stops.
Five minutes later.
I sit in the lobby.
A man is unraveling next to me.
Another man strops himself
yet only becomes duller.
Sweatband man
washes the windows
with toilet paper
and announces his
labor is barter
for court costs
he will never pay.
I notice a Rosa Parks
sticker on his briefcase.
He encrusted plastic jewels around it.
They sparkle,
the windows, too.
Sweatband man
talks to another man,
the one living under
the bakery.
He’s telling him about
skating with a piece
of stolen plywood,
and discoveries
in his new Bob Dylan (his words) basement:
three keyboards, three guitars, a drum machine.
He wants to get a band together,
a rock and roll band!
He doesn’t know how
to play an instrument.
The other man doesn’t either,
but he wants to be in the band.
This is how the Go-Gos started.
This is how Walt started.
I laugh to myself.
The machine hums to life.
I thought rock was dead!
Not with these men.
I might even join the band,
Walt, too!
We’ll cover Bob Seger
and the Go Gos,
but there will be some originals, too.
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