Monday, April 1, 2013

Bando (Poem)



Bando

Bando fancies himself J. Alfred Prufrock,
head full of hair, some twenty years younger..
Thinking about poetry and philosophy, he sits on a
old wooden chair.

“I only like the people I like,” Bando says in a profoundly cliché
kind of way while he sits inside his dark little unlocked gilded cage.
He considers himself a “master of triviality,” his only problem is
that nobody really cares.

Bando watches his old T.V.
He laughs at people falling
and at the murders in the news at six.
“Natural selection at its finest,” he
cheerfully exclaims.
His T.V. burns out from
overuse pains.

Bando pounds his fist on the wall
Pounding, pounding, pounding.
The concrete pierces his flesh, his knuckles bleed.
He is afraid to go out, he is tired of staying in.
Instead he philosophizes and smiles like a little monkey,
“Random singularities, that’s what we are,” he calmly states.
It makes him feel important, big and here.

The falling drops of blood echo inside his
dark little gilded cage with no locks pooling by his unmoving foot.
“Finally, something interesting to do,” Bando dips his finger in
and plays with his own blood. 
Meanwhile his little dark gilded cage without locks lies uncleaned,
needs painting and mold is growing on the pretty gilded bars.

Bando rises from his old wooden chair, walks to the gilded door.
Carefully grabs the handle with his finger tips,
Slowly opens it and peeks outside.
His fears and responsibilities throw him back inside.
He doesn’t know what to do, whether to choke
himself with the old damp air
or burn his face with the hot sun. 
He hums “The Little Engine that Could”
to himself

Bando sits on his wooden chair again, he smells the mold.
He is back in his gilded cage with no locks.
If you ask him he screams: “You think I like my
little gilded cage with no locks! It’s the only
thing I have, it’s the only thing I know.”

Bando rocks himself slowly to sleep,
sitting on the old wooden chair.

(2004)

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