Scott Simpson · Poetry
Global Lunchbreak
Selected Poems 1989 to 2009 · source pages 322
All poetryThe original line breaks, stanza spacing, and placement are preserved. Long lines scroll horizontally.
Source page 322
Global Lunchbreak
So the bell rang and we all punched out, but it's hard being the American, so many third-world countries
strategically located but ideologically problematic, and then there's the lingering fast-food aftertaste
and the smell of the Mall bathroom and the poly-textured rub of the voting-booth curtain sliding open to the
sounds of the "historically oppressed" making marketable music for my children to buy but not
get, and all of this factors in, but the worst part is when the market crashes and I have to remind myself
that a 700 billion dollar bailout, after all, would be just a small drop in the world economy bucket I've
been kicking…
Being the American means almost everyone wants me to fall hard—harder because I'm holding most of the goods
and losing friends fast, making people want to tear down my back fence and scatter my toys…
it all makes my stomach hurt--gives me a real global-tension headache…
So, I take a deep, cleansing breath, and stroll nostalgically out among the cold-war missile silos and
dream of days when slapping leather solved everything until I'm stopped short in front of a polished
casing panel, my reflection distorted and stretched, but still quite cinematic, "You lookin' at me?... Are
you lookin' at me?" and damn if I'm not doing a great DeNiro, and I slap and slap… but when I turn around, the
rest of the world is no longer looking, they all went for Chinese take-out.
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