Telephone poles are

the message boards of our town

with all the posters, pictures,

and paraphernalia of the neighborhood

miscellaneous notices

for missing cats and dogs and even children

garage sales

house sales

yard work

and occasionally

a real ad for a roof or a paint job

these poles are the totems of our society

erected not for their utility

but for their prime purpose

of being community bulletin boards

singular exclamation points planted

firmly in the ground of American ingenuity

like primitives

we gather around these limbless trees

to keep our clan together

to stake our claim

to telephone our thoughts

where eye-level is prime real estate

with lots of tape and tacks

we post our notes

in tattered copy paper

and dangling loose leaf pages

we send out signals to the tribe

free advertising for all who dare

hop out of the car

and post their notices on the fly

we sell our stuff on cardboard posters

on the backs of flyers

black markers are the tools of the trade

we are selling free enterprise

entrepreneurship

get there first and fast

hammer and nail

staple gun our free thoughts

then leave the images to eventually deteriorate

from rain and wind and sun

fading into a weathered tomorrow

becoming part of the pole

becoming graffiti

becoming art

 

we post our bills

we sell our stuff

we communicate

we run it up the pole!