20150624 (gregariousness)

I’ve probably talked to pedophiles

Maybe shaken their hands

It’s a risk of being gregarious

Twenty people silent for a whole minute

As an express elevator ascends

As quickly as it can without bursting

Peoples’ eardrums on their common voyage

To the sixtieth floor strikes me as a waste

Of a third of an hour of human hearing

I’ve tried telling jokes even when I didn’t 

Know a single person in the car

Reaped mostly silence for my effort

Although a brave soul here and there

Told me to Shut the F Up failing sometimes

To identify the F Other times it could have been 

Because they were all Bulgarians although I 

Never met a Bulgarian who could keep

Quiet for a minute Or maybe it

Was my spiritless Pentecost where they

All spoke different languages and my 

Flame was out that day Gotta admit

That often it’s not from love of the other

So much as a chance to blow my horn

Can I help I was born with 

Two scoops of chutzpah 

I can’t always call it courage but

There was the one time I was mugged

At midnight at the gate of my house

The two were walking toward me as I 

Was trying to get Loki in the gate

I should have run but they managed

To grab my arm I said Good evening

Gentlemen and they replied 

Don’t try anything stupid or maybe

Don’t try anything, Stupid, 

Emphasized their advice by 

Whacking me across the face

With something so hard and so heavy

I’m lucky my nose moved only a bit

To the right but stayed attached

As a channel for blood.

I’ve said before so much for 

A soft answer turneth away wrath Proverbs 15 

Where it also says The eyes of the Lord

Are in every place, beholding the evil and the good

I’d like to think the Lord was satisfied beholding

And that he thought my admonishment enough

He could have allowed me to become a statistic

On the morrow’s front page 

For which I’m grateful

So there’s a reason I’m still around

Talking to practically anybody who will

Respond and so many who won’t

My guide has been He ate with sinners

And tax collectors. Who am I

To make finer distinctions 

c. J.S.Manista, 2015