Piotr Florczyk
People’s Overture
Arise, children—get dressed
and eat your toast with gooseberry jam—
before it’s too late.
To arms, parents—let’s march
the kids back to school.
Our cities may be asleep, the worms
getting all the treats,
but the farmers demand we act
while our future, giggling, dangles
from the gallows. Hurry, someone,
for God’s sake,
reset the sun clock to zero-zero!
Years hence no one will care
if we kept our pie holes stuffed
with something
other than lyrics. The Queen
watches no TV. God saves her
toil and trouble, powdering the air
she breathes.
Though the pitch teems with knavish
double-agents looking to score
a draw, our hearts rattle
like baby teeth in a biscuit tin.
If we had it our way,
we’d scrap the past, take
turns putting Scipio’s helmet on and watch
our Vespas morph into Ducatis.
We were born hollow
cannoli bounced between
relatives finger-deep in dope
and chianti. “Dolce vita?”—
god willing we’ll spend the rest of our days
sucking on teats—
or—if push comes to shove—
munching on kebabs rolled inside
bimmer food trucks off Venice Blvd.
Nostra culpa: the leather pants
and the Totenkopf come out just
on holidays. We’re ourselves for real
when we wrap our arms around
a whipped horse’s neck.
But—oh là là—it’s the screeching night-
tram packed with refugees
from a hockey game that reminds us why
after every war
we unlock our doors. Just don’t ask
the man with a blower
strapped to his chest about maple leaves
growing far and wide,
even on heads. We’ll endure—
like the thousand-year-old
bison grass vodka. We’ll ford rivers,
cross the Rockies, naked, if we must.
After sixty-nine mazurkas, let’s
give Chopin another chance.