My briefcase stowed in the hold,
I throw off
and drift into the stream of traffic
making my way down the canals
of my subdivision,
merging through the locks of lights
until I hit the big river highway.
I set my minivan on a southerly heading -
two hands on the wheel.
Red lights off the bow
and white coming past port -
the sun has yet to unfurl its rosy-fingered arms.
When questioned whether he was a merchant
or a pirate
Odysseus declared for the black flag.
There is no glory in being a merchant
and so I have my Jolly Roger in the glove box
and a bottle of rum under the lumbar-supporting seat
just in case I find the courage today
to drive on past my exit -
straight
into the winedark sea.
From Adam Smith's Lectures on Jurisprudence:
I throw off
and drift into the stream of traffic
making my way down the canals
of my subdivision,
merging through the locks of lights
until I hit the big river highway.
I set my minivan on a southerly heading -
two hands on the wheel.
Red lights off the bow
and white coming past port -
the sun has yet to unfurl its rosy-fingered arms.
When questioned whether he was a merchant
or a pirate
Odysseus declared for the black flag.
There is no glory in being a merchant
and so I have my Jolly Roger in the glove box
and a bottle of rum under the lumbar-supporting seat
just in case I find the courage today
to drive on past my exit -
straight
into the winedark sea.
From Adam Smith's Lectures on Jurisprudence:
In a rude society nothing is honourable but war. In the Odyssey, Ulysses is sometimes asked, by way of affront, whether he be a pirate or a merchant. At that time a merchant was reckoned odious and despicable; but a pirate or robber, as he was a man of military bravery, was treated with honour. We may observe that those principles of the human mind which are most beneficial to society, are by no means marked by nature as the most honourable.
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