Optimism

Optimism

by Kelp

Now is the time for optimism,
Strong and undiluted;
Like a flask of eighty proof,
Like a double-shot of espresso,
Like a snort of crack-cocaine.
Like the surge from an atomic explosion
So brilliant and so bright
That you cannot look away.
You don your rose-colored glasses.
You bring your lips right up to it.
Burn your tongue on it,
Burn your throat on it.

Awww fuck.
Don’t let me fool you.
I don’t drink coffee of any type.
Least of all espresso.
I have never done drugs of any type.
And certainly not cocaine.
I have never been drunk.
Don’t own a flask.
I don’t know a thing about
Nuclear fission.
And, sadly,
The thing I know the least about
Is optimism.

But now take a look through the large end of a periscope-telescope-kaleidoscope,
Some variety of scopething that will make you see things
In a radically different way, there,
Over there, across the park, near the benches,
A boy of five, with a scruff of orange hair,
Stamping his scuffed-up black Buster Browns
On the grey-black asphalt,
Tugging on his father’s hand and coat
And pointing with his face and finger
At the truck that sells Good Humor.

From all of this I draw conclusions --
Tentative though they may be.
The first one being the obvious one -- 
That we need to imagine what we’ve never tasted,
In order to experience what we haven’t yet experienced.
The second one is something about
The innocent desire for something sweet.