Chapin City Blues

I need tell nobody he lost it all
the following year due to a common injury
and now our lifetime earning potentials aren’t so far apart.
I once taught where Newt Gingrich
first appeared to the world like a pale warning.
There was a plaque in the hallway
so that no one would ever forget
he lectured the young on the cyclical evils of history.
How there was always fire
wherever there was death
and the world was pretty much immune to so much suffering.

Paul Guest is the author of four collections of poetry, including My Index of Slightly Horrifying Knowledge and Notes for My Body Double, as well as the memoir One More Theory About Happiness. He has been published in Poetry, where you can read this poem in its entirety.