| He saw Mars but he felt Neptune
|
| He had hoped to feel a certain strong emotion
|
| But this is all they had to say:
|
| «I was the son of a man, and so
|
| We came together and we shook hands.»
|
| «We shook hands.»
|
| He often wondered what a million people
|
| Would look like scattered randomly
|
| Across a moonless sky, and how unlikely
|
| It would be that they would all just
|
| Say the obvious thing:
|
| «You may call me brother now.»
|
| «Yes, brother, I know.»
|
| He is forty two
|
| Five-feet-eight-inches tall
|
| Normally wears his curly hair long
|
| He has a ruddy complexion, broad
|
| Shoulders and is barrel-chested
|
| Is unusually strong
|
| He frequently wears a full beard
|
| And sometimes glasses
|
| He is a college graduate
|
| A talented artist, and sculptor
|
| Now, Maps is a soft-spoken loner
|
| Who resents society and all organizations
|
| Maps fancies himself a ladies' man
|
| He is an avid chess player
|
| Smokes cigarettes, and a pipe
|
| He is a beer drinker and loves to eat
|
| Maps is a man of widespread interests
|
| Who might very well be living abroad
|
| He felt lost be he felt pretty intensely good
|
| And he woke up screaming having dreamed
|
| Of a color he had never seen before:
|
| «I went to bed and to sleep, it was so
|
| Unexpected, it really was frightening
|
| And I saw pretty much the same thing
|
| Embedded in my pillow.»
|
| He had no trouble recognizing patterns
|
| In the most delicate arrays of tangled lines
|
| But he had a strange fixation on partaking
|
| In nefarious things:
|
| «Stealing, lying, cheating, gambling
|
| Fornication…»
|
| He saw red, but he thought five
|
| He was pleased to find his road trip
|
| Was enhanced by number-color synesthesia:
|
| «My trusty Rocinante bounds along the road
|
| Very well, leaving the friendly aroma
|
| Of donuts and chicken tenders
|
| Hanging in the desert air.»
|
| He willed away the miles while quixotically
|
| Attempting to reclaim his inner child
|
| He was embrangled and enmeshed in
|
| Something far too loud to comprehend:
|
| «I want all of the American people
|
| To understand that it is understandable
|
| That the American people cannot
|
| Possibly understand.» |