How Wonderful The World Must Be Someplace

They say now that it was
April 16, 1178 BC
When Odysseus returned to Ithaca
Under a orange sunset
The Pleiades ascending in the West

And I’m sure that
400 years ago
A many-times-great grandfather sailed with the Armada
Smoke in the sky, the Atlantic strewn with the
Wood of broken ships and the limbs of broken men,
The British fleet in flames off the coast of Morocco

But tonight history finds me
In a Courtyard, by Marriott,
Lombard, Illinois
Waiting for someone to knock on my door
And bring me salmon and vegetables
Sautéed in too much butter

They say we die one day a time
And this evening I’m choosing to die
While watching other people live

In Rome today
Men ran on crushed red clay
To determine who was the fastest
And in Vienna one country
Was trying to kick a ball into the goal of
Another country
And in the cradle of civilization
We were helping some Persians
Fight different Persians
I sat quietly
And watched a Asian program
Being subtitled into a different Asian language

How wonderful the world must be someplace

I took a cab to Chicago
And found a bar
Off State and Ontario
Where a man played piano
Against the front window
Under red neon

I watched him from the end
Of a long rectangular bar,
I was drinking gin
And he was singing Sinatra
And I lit a cigarette

His song finished
And I noticed a man sitting next to the piano
In a black turtleneck
Looking like a peaceful Eldridge Cleaver
Except for the eye patch over his left eye
And the thin blonde on his left arm

The piano man started playing
The Summer Wind
And he, then I, lit another cigarette
And I watched him shake his head slowly
Back and forth
Right hand cupping his scotch
Left hand cupping his blonde
And we drank together
And smoked together

And then before the second verse
The piano player looked over
And I watched this man
Take his arm from around his date
And reach for the microphone
And sing about the days and nights
That went flying by
Never taking his hand off his drink
Cigarette still lit in the ashtray
The blonde staring at him

I was transfixed:
Here, at last, was living!
I ordered another drink,
It was late but I would not go home tonight,
I would give my Blackberry to a homeless man
And throw my laptop in a dumpster!
I’d buy better clothes
And a cigarette case!
I’d stop drinking anything blended
And stop dating anything not blonded!

I would follow this man
From bar to bar
And do the things he does:
I’d stop driving cars with four doors
And travel with nothing I couldn’t carry in my pockets
I’d eat in darkened restaurants
With women in little black dresses,
My fingers mindlessly grazing across their legs
While I sent back wine that wasn’t good enough
And I’d put things on a tab, my tab!

I paid the bill and walked outside
And felt the hot September air
Blowing off Lake Michigan
And took the Ike back into the suburbs
To my chain hotel
And waited for my 7am
Conference call.