The Mad Professor has been reading Whitman again
and as always goes down to the boardwalk
to visit Roscoe the Uncommon Man,
who hates to be called “homeless” because
“This planet’s my home.
And if we don’t wise up to that,
the saucer people are going to take it away from us.”
Under La Maison Des Yuppies,
where cute is obligatory and food is a decoration,
Roscoe the Uncommon Man,
wearing a cologne made up of alcohol and shit
even the baptism of the sea cannot wash away,
lies like a piece of driftwood, oddly shaped,
grizzled with sea salt, flecked with tar,
in the crawl space the pilings make
between La Maison’s floor and the sand.
Afraid he will set himself on fire and burn it down,
the owners of La Maison
have sealed the space with heavy metal mesh.
But he pries, or digs under, unaware or uncaring
that the storm-driven tide comes in
all the way up in the wedge he lies down in.
At supper time, when the kitchen smells seep
down through the floor, The Mad Professor,
crouching to call under to inquire whether Roscoe is receiving,
finds the body hung in the wire
like a piece of newspaper crucified there by the wind.
Through the doors of La Maison,
the Mad Professor storms in like Jesus
to scatter the moneychangers;
he grabs the first tablecloth and yanks,
and because irony is the engine of the world,
it snaps flawlessly from under the glasses filled with Chardonnay
without spilling a drop,
and the plates rattle but sit at last
undisturbed as the New World Order,
and the couple who will be clean forever
in their celebrity-labeled clothes
begin a scattering of appreciative applause,
and hand him a tip.
©WILLIAM JOHN WATKINS
William John Watkins 