Breakfast BBC

Comings and meetings with somebody new
Though he expected the coming, and met it anyway
With only a soft oh of recognition and no surprise,
Grounded by a hotel-roomed newsflash
Of the violence he had hoped never to see,
Although, from Belfast to Baghdad,
There are always more than two sides
To this loose hand-me-down war.

He looked down on the string of moving lights,
His eye-gleam only a glowscreen reflection,
Was reminded of the shining path--

Truthfully, it's a bit shadier than the name lets on
Not exactly bright and transparent
Like that stubbornly delicate Europa Hotel
(how can anyone defend himself?)
And if you set yourself up to unveil a hypocrisy
Then you at least acknowledge its sliver of reality,
Barely a splinter, mind you, but nettling nonetheless
In English, French, or Arabic acerbic.

For you and I can't afford our fantasies here
Not that the culture was quite real in the first place,
Making motion pictures, but not a life.

He turned away, turned it off, and decided
Not to leave breadcrumbs in the nautilus spiral
Not wanting to waste his continental practicality,
Shifting back into quizzical adoration
Deserved of grown-up talk, gradually less pervasive
In the much-fabled teen spirit of attraction
Helped along by technological know-how
That will soon be scuttled, and outlive itself.

So to hell with the eggs and toast and bacon
And their greasy speculation,
Collecting keen on a neutral stretch of stomach.