more fritos from the outskirts of academia

it's a lovely spring day, and, outside,
sexy mostly-naked young men are playing
volleyball; they are wearing only shorts and tennis
shoes -- nothing else but those minimally invasive
darling little shreds of attire.
**
music plays constantly in the
background.
**
a big riding lawnmower with its wings up
goes by on the street, and
the lawnmower makes a "bang" sound when a tire hits
a pothole or something, and for an instant
it kinda sounds like
the guy driving that lawnmower has just
activated some gadget on the
mower that can fire gunshots on command.
**
one of the volleyball players goes over and turns up
the music, though, and everything's
ok -- and even when he leans down and one of his
testicles droops down out of his underpants
where everyone can see, it's just considered
a peace offering, though: a glimpse of flesh
designed to pacify the masses.
**
complaints are rare in this environment,
protests feigned and notoriously insincere.

--Carl Miller Daniels (This poem appeared in Nerve Cowboy, Number 23, Spring 2007.)