When You Get Right Down to It

​(When you get right down to it, a brick
Is a brick. But even further down,
Don’t let your eyes deceive you.)
As for what’s going on uptown,

Those lights you see are, aren’t,
Lights, you see. You thought that was
A stadium, but a stadium is
A hole, really. You heard the buzz

Of electricity, even
That, sorry, is a high tension
Wire in Missouri. But if
You need the slip promising your pension

And you see yourself wetting a line
In Blue Springs Lake, or your destiny
Seems like a cobweb in the attic,
Then imagine your agent with a goatee,

Imagine a cloud raining cats and dogs,
Imagine smoking cherry tobacco
On the back stairs, imagine hobnobbing
Out in Arles with Van Gogh. 

My word! He knew how
To paint a field so that it ceased
To be a field, you shook your head,
“I’ve always been a shaggy beast.”