Roots

Verwurzelt - Rooted 23 x 30,5 cm

AMERICA’S DREAMING

One day it must have been the other

day I was talking to a guy in a bar

harsh daylight outside, inside as dark

as a mine shaft with neon beer logos 

lighting the way to alcoholic oblivion

and I was trying to remember Ingmar Bergman’s

camera man, his name, not the grace

and intelligence of his artistry, only his name,

when I by the way asked this guy what he did for a living.

Just passing through, he answered, just drifting by.

Well, right-on to that, I said, and we bumped fists softly.

Sven something, I said, slapping the bar.

He’s the camera guy.

The Swedes have contributed

mightily to this country, the man whose

name I didn’t know said. Let’s not

forget the Irish, I countered, gentle but firm,

their unerring sense of music and unprecedented mastery

of what is essentially the language of their oppressors.

A strangely aborted wet sound filled the air as the barman

tried to soak up some spilt beer with a dry sponge.

So much of what we say, the man said, is inconsequential.

That’s why people everywhere prefer to dream.

Just outside the Pottery

Barn in Vermont, or the Cheese factory

in Wisconsin, or the Edible Complex in Oakland, they’re all dreaming.

On a flight between LAX and Houston two manic-talking

bloated business dudes, each taking a breath, pausing  

to observe the finely articulated bottom and hips of a passing stewardess,

are dreaming too, even when they’re wide awake at 30,000 feet up.  

 3rd movement, New World Sypmphony by Antonin Dvorak

conducted by Herbert von Karajan