Mostly the world thumps as it revolves,
like a tire about to blow out bigtime.
Some little place on earth has an owie
that nobody will kiss, an owie that throbs and stinks.
Will someone please kiss the latest wars?
Just a couple of smackers to make them feel better?
Would you, YOU, kiss something that rancid?
Or will you just ride along in your body,
reading your newspaper and saying "I'll be darned"?
This world needs a gigantic, resounding kiss
that will echo down the centuries as the turning point
at which mankind dropped its murderous mind
and gave and loved and gave and loved some more.
My lips are pursed to give this kiss, but where
should it be administered?
Where is the world, indeed?
Where is mankind?
These easy questions are as profound as Zen.
My heart wells up with unconditional love
to heal and cure and save and mend,
but there's no world to kiss, no mankind.
Ignorant of my good intentions and holy purpose,
the world goes on thumping like a terrible tire while
I and a million other do-gooders fail to kiss its lump.
"Let the world be the lopsided world," my head whispers
to me.
"The world chooses perfectly what is needed for its growth,
and so do all the people who are in the world."
But letting what is be what is is too wrenching for my heart.
Call me whatever you wish--
I now plant this giant smacker in the air
so that Earth and I may groove aright among the silences.
From Blue Sky in Buckets (1990)
by Alan Harris
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