Walls

While I was writing on the wall some angry words
at whoever was in charge of things

someone I didn’t know but might have been related to
was writing angry words across the street

about the other guys – across the aisle,
“the opposition,” as if the guys in charge

weren’t equally to blame, no matter
which side of the aisle they claim.

We noticed each other across the street,
looking to see who was looking at us;

but it was only us, the street was still,
and we were angry only because we had

time to kill. I could have finished his line,
and he mine, and the intent would have been

the same – one wall for those coming
and the other for those going

to or from their work. I thought my opposite
something of a jerk for dirtying up

a perfectly good wall, whereas my words
were my wall’s reason for being.

As of now, however, it’s no longer standing.

*

Half-cocked rhymes, echoes of Ogden Nash -- a much-neglected Modernist poet -- and of course a simplistic, wise-ass political allegory. But the real trigger of this poem was simply the name of Robert Walser, about whose works I have been reading (as opposed to reading his works, which I will do as soon as the Amazon order arrives).