My Eyes Are Swimming Like Fish

After years of suffering, I felt better standing up.

I can’t deny it!  All those humdrum days of patient whimpering

were like so much sweat beneath the bed covers.

But now I am walking about, and…

There is no escaping our practical natures.

Like the skyscrapers’ blank, ordered windows

in the sky, in the clouds, in the blue.

What basically is a matter of stuff

is a question of limitlessness… of infinities…

of billions in billings of it, all adding up;

heavy office furniture and equipment hundreds of feet up,

and floors of vast hovering carpets.

Staring upwards beyond the trees,

I imagine those tenants

– their aerial knees –

straightening their ties

and adjusting their sleeves.

The glossy tops of their work-a-day shoes

hide soles reverent as butlers.

And yet, power has its purposes…

Of what use is a penniless King?

                                                 by Carl Nelson

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