“I am convinced that we underground folk ought to be kept on a curb.
Though we may sit underground for forty years without speaking,
when we do come out into the light of day and break out we talk
and talk and talk…”  
-  Dostoyevsky

What do we above ground folk have to offer?
When I told a cop eating eggs and bacon
(no salt, he got brutal over his blood
pressure) about the many religions I had up there,

he started going ape shit, Ralph Kramden saying
“Don’t steam me, Alice!” After my jail sentence,
we parted as friends, hugged like talk show huggers do,

made amends, made love,
and made bread. When I got home the TV
greeted me while cats played turd hockey
in the litter box. Here above ground

it’s peaceful. Like a gun after a bullet fires into
some random chest. I breathe in thin smoke,
caress the warm barrel.

 

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Notes from Above Ground by Kenneth Pobo
originally published March 3, 2008