POST TRAUMATIC STRESS/FROM A MAIL SOLICITATION
by Elizabeth P. Glixman

Down the street at the bottom where only wise men go wrapped in left-brained leanings, the tower of the university tilts a clown on stilts balancing the influx of loose minds tightropes of uncertainty and floating hormones; spinal sublixation is the unresolved answer to the dean’s headaches, walking cultural multicultural cultures students from 300 third world countries still counting, and those aliens from the third rock from the you know where planet living with walk-ins from outer space and the sons of oilmen from midtown Middle East-the foreignettes who shake money around like confetti for DVDs-palm pilots American things like the secrets of nuclear abominations, and how to run poor homeland security franchises, fun for the whole family, while Big Foot and the Monster of Lock Ness are all here with Duck feet, Donald and Pluto, the hip hop hops, the folksy rocks, country westerners in the dorms wearing computers on their belts to make translating life to sense easier often with concealed drugs and abundant cocaine even though administration quietly knows the classics are in some part of this nether kingdom underneath vocational counseling where Shakespeare ponders the global community streams of learning concentrations, and how much is the university contributing to scientific America or war since twenty years ago or more no actuality from me; the student words escaped my morning cereal; I saw diplomas without my name in each spoonful of milk, fingering the white juice, knowing distinctly I would never see the light between letters, the place of supreme comfort where in between each breath is the space where peace exists still questioning; is there a research grant that can find this a drug to clear me of useless verbs and logarithms and dates, please, knowing, passing without knowledge the goal; my thoughts are ruffled and edged like radishes in pretty salads looking for meaning, measuring the weight of soundlessness; the clapping of one-hand leaves no imprints-I cannot send money this month-I could not write the term paper on peace until now.

© Elizabeth P. Glixman 2004

Elizabeth Glixman is a fine artist and writer. She used to work with children in educational art programs to support her writing habit and pay for her addiction to eating and shelter. She lives in Massachusetts in the same town where the rocket and birth control pills were created.

(epg22@mindspring.com)

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