"Words' Worth" Poetry Readings
Poets at the Culture, Arts, and Parks Committee
of the Seattle City Council.
Tall Tales by Phoebe Bosché
I.
I believed
they believed
they who governed
who set the rules
of the game:
that the huddled masses would stop
their yearning
once they the shores of Manhattan reached,
that of the people by the people meant
that one person
was a special interest onto his or her own self
not
just a vote from a cemetery.
II.
I believe
ideas can be solid enough to die for
if necessary
though it is easier watching Erroll Flynn do it
gallantly
with his boots on and the U.S. 2nd Cavalry storming
to his defense
but not in time to upstage his one-man-stand
against all the Plains Indians
plus Geronimo.
III.
I still believe,
even though I found
the last buffalo
captured on one side of a nickel
in the back pocket of yesterdays Injun lying dead
drunk on a bench in Pioneer Square beneath that
great bronze monument
to Chief Seattle.
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