Third World Calling

Narrated by Jennifer Lagier

California

Third World Calling

This loud morning

   Sensed a small cry in

   the news

       paper

caught somewhere on

an inner page

     I

Decide to travel for lunch &

end up at an automat

   White House Cafeteria

looking thru a little window

   put a nickel in the slot

   and out comes

      fried rice

Taking a tour

    of the rest of that building

  I hear a small cry

     beyond the rice paddies

   between floors where

       the elevator sticks

and remember last’s night dream of

   attending my own funeral

at a drive-in mortuary

   not really believing

      I was that dead

Someone throwing rice

      All the windows dry

Tipped the coffin open & laughed

           into it

and out falls

    old funnyface

      myself

   the bargain tragedian

with a small cry

followed by sound of Che Guevara singing

   in the voice of Fidel

Far over the Perfume River

              the clouds pass

    carrying small cries

The monsoon has set in

            the windows weep

     I

 back up to

            the Pentagon

on a flatbed truck

and unload the small brown bodies

       fresh from the blasted fields!