Thanks For A Brief Moment of Arrogance

Sitting in Philadelphia

Independence Hall

Wired out of my mind on Taurine

And waiting to see where this country was created

I am abomination, destroyer, long haired

Be-bearded madman with a poetry notebook

A green-eyed monster of some kind

The kind that must have built this building around me

I’d just cried at the grave of Ben Franklin

And I was all emotional

The little girl, a tall drink of water

Couldn’t have been older than 10, 11

Ran over, about fifteen feet away

Squared me up in the camera

Took a picture

Then scampered away to be behind her girls

Giggling and looking back

I let go of the string

The kite has some electricity in it now

It goes flying away with my bearings

I am beloved of some young woman

At long, long last

Is it the long-cultivated poetic spirit

Coming off me in waves?

The magic of the place, the time

The freedom of being far from home?

Pride cometh before a fall

Pride goeth before success

Benjamin Franklin shouldn’t have died

And only later, at home

I realized she might have been taking pictures

And giggling

Because I am so incredibly pitiful