Wire: Washington Poems 1995-1998

Things were different then. We won the Cold War. The Twin Towers stood. We understood the global financial structure, and how countries should develop. Davos Man strode the earth like a colossus. Looking back, however, one sees the emergence of present unhappiness. The distance among people, the envious inequality, the alienation, the desperate arrogance of hollow professionals -- it was all there already, in plain view from the DC Metro. With some effort I have resisted the urge to improve. This is what I got done in those days, under those circumstances, circumstances that may yet teach us about our own.