A Note To The Utopians by Mather Schneider

Utopians, keep trooping,
take your little Tupperware party of the soul
to the next house,
go pick your noses
on someone else’s nickel.

I’m getting sick of hearing about how it takes
fewer muscles to smile
than to frown
getting pretty
fed up with it Utopians.

Look, there’s a Utopian
with a cup of chantily tea
tapping a novel into her laptop.
There’s a Utopian
living in a pine tree.
There’s a Utopian sniffing Carlos Castaneda’s armpits
and popping pot ant-acids.

Utopians, where were you
when my gall bladder imploded?
Where were you when Shawn ate too many mushrooms
or when my brother got thrown in the slammer
or when my gouty foot
bloomed into an eggplant?
Probably pulpit-hopping
or counting your trust fund interest
or finishing your Pope John Paul paint-by-numbers.

I suppose I need to go to school to learn your language, Utopians, your secrets,
or at least a seminar or symposium
or maybe I need to take a retreat to Big Sur or Tibet
or eat only salads
of 4-leaf clovers from the highlands of Lochailort?
Or maybe I just need to give you cold
cash
to hold a place for me in paradise
right next to your urine-fountain
or switch my brand of soap
or change my name to include letters that haven’t
been used in 400 years?

Utopians, you bring the darkness rising
out of people
with all your so-called light.

Mather Schneider is 46 years old. He has had hundreds of poems and stories published since 1993 in places like Rattle, Nerve Cowboy, Slipstream, Nimrod, River Styx and Smokelong. He has 3 full length books, DROUGHT RESISTANT STRAIN, HE TOOK A CAB and THE SMALL HEARTS OF ANTS, with another, PRICKLY, coming early in 2017. He divides his time between Tucson, Arizona and northern Mexico, where his wife is from. He earns his living by driving a cab.