poem

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Harvard Fragment

Found scrawled on a torn paper cup blowing through the Square, by the gates of the Yard

Where the old and the young bide their time in games of Granite

And Plastic concentration

The Skein of ink-blue Letters diminishing in size as they race

From the Styrofoam Lip of the Cup to the Round Cap dregs

Amerigo Vespucci by Wikipedia

At the bottom of the coiled and ever-widening Stain:

Named after a charlatan and a pimp, weak and dissolute with Age

Her Face Paint running in the politically-charged heat

Down her sunken and disease-stricken cheeks

Poor poor Ameriga (it can be said, The People say) has now fallen to a State

At one with her obscure and inglorious etymology.

Authors Bio:

Stephen Lee Waterhouse lives in Three Corners, Massachusetts and describes himself--tongue-in-cheek--as an anarcho-totalitarian. It is his understanding that he is named after a Christian martyr and a Confederate general. He currently works for MediaOne New England News.