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Survive & Thrive
The Cicerone in the Triangle

(for B.O.)

J. Quinn Quisben



Mapping before we escaped gravity
Was endless triangulation,
A theodolite on a tripod focussed
On two known points, angles calculated,
Then moved on to a new apex
Et cetera as infinitum,
Then grids were laid on triangles
To divide mine from yours
Which left out the natives who
Thought all of this was ours
And could never be divided.

Now triangles swell and fade;
The cicerone and his friend the planner
Find themselves edging a big one
Connectiong three cities which are
Not urban according to planner
Because the young, old, poor, and crippled
Cannot access the needful on foot,
So downtown is down like thee
Family farm, although a few of those
Still exist, suffering from
Changing tastes and poision and
Processors who want, as usual,
Power without responsibility

Unlike pilots in the last propellor war
They have no relief tubes;
They gyre off I40 to exchange
Fluids and stoke up in the
Always superb greasy fries;
They sit in Eames chairs
Where they are joined by a trucker
Both wired and wirelessed
Whose dispatcher told him by cel
To crash for a few hours;
his chin approached the table
More closely with each nod.

The planner admits a guilty pleasure
In driving these well-engineered
Slabs where you can go
A mile and a quarter per minute
To shop for bargains in outlet malls
With freedom to go anywhere
As long as the road goes there
And you have wheels and can drive;
“But this is slavery to many
And degredation of the land
And poison in air and bodies
To make profit for a very few
Who are hard to atack because
They have enclosed the commons
Where once we addressed each other.”

The cicerine nods in agreement:
“I love to loop and yo-yo on
these roads listening to a tape
Of Edward Gibbon’s Decline and Fall,
Glorying in freedom from slowness,
And from long hikes with no rest
Because benches are no longer there
To comfort those going nowhere;
I wish I could believe that you can
Reverse this fading century’s race,
Confound Frank Lloyd Wright, and
Make elevators outrace cars
And rails trump highways afterall;
My slogan for the new millenium
Is HEY, HEY! HO, HO!
FOSSIL FUELS HAVE GOT TO GO!
And age will soon make me, as you say,
A slave and beggar to those with wheels;
I wish I could still take the North
Robinson bus from Grandma’s house
To downtown Oklahoma City where
They had a bookseller who knew books
And a jazz buf behind the record counter
And a skid row, a place for misfits
Temporary and permanent, a relaxed stretch
Crowned by my uncle’s Reno Street bar,
A chivalric and well-regulated dive,
Dealing in measured oblivion;
I miss it; I miss downtown;
The place where it used to be
Is a thousand miles west on I-40,
Which bulldozed the beery refuge.”
The trucker lifts his head and says:
“I can score you some bennies,
So you can drive straight through.”




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