A Song for Central
Europe
When this meal is over
and the surly resentful waiters
have cleared away the fruity little coffee cups
with the grit left in the bottom
while my hosts reassure that this shabby show
is style, is class, is elegance
and that my hunger for green vegetables
is only an Amerikan affectation,
I would like to stumble into a
3 AM 7-11, buzzed
I will ask the halfwit behind the counter
“Howzigoin?” and he’ll know I don’t really care
but still he’ll joke with me
as if I was another human being
Leaving with my ale
I won’t curse the tram schedule
Instead I will jump into my own car
and watch in the rearview for diligent cops
who have no fascist fusballers to chase
and so are concerned for my B.A.L.
Lest I jump the curb by Fred Meyers
and sanguinate the smoothly concrete American sidewalk
I wanna be back where Krank
is not the shitty way my lungs feel
from the plaster dust and crowds coldly spewing contagion
through the subway
But the stuff that keeps me moving down I-5 through the wee
hours
Percolating an infectious funk through my veins
in the land where that long snake moans.
Daniel T. Snyder ~1996
