"I grew up on the Southeast Side of Chicago. And when I was a little kid playing with sticks, the Chicago Tribune ran an article that announced, quite dispassionately, that my neighborhood -- because of its proximity to the steel mills -- was ground zero for a nuclear attack.

"That made me feel real good.

"Next to that article was a sidecar [I know it's sidebar but I most always saysidecar to get a laugh] explaining how (if you were bothered by this news) you could build a fallout shelter in your own back yard.

"Think of that while you listen. And think of Richard Prior (for some reason I'm not sure of). And remember that this poem goes out to that Modern Day American Hero -- Colonel Ollie North."

It don't matter to me

No way, no how.

I'm right here

Smack dab in the middle.

So no way's it gonna matter to me.

And I ain't diggin' no concrete coffin.

No backyard mausoleum

To keep me a-pickle-sweet a-plenty

Plied with sardines and pork sausage wieners

Livin' out the chance

That some bubble-fleshed victim

Will come puckered-up and scabby-lipped

To kiss me in the name of a new Mankind.

Oh No! Not me.

I want that radio transmitter

Nuclear guidance system

Stuck right here in my pocket.

Better yet, stitch the thing under my skin.

I want the first-world, third-world,

East-West-Baghdad-Beirut-Chinese-Tehran

To tune in, lock on, and lift off.

And before I make like the vapors.

Before I say "Hello there." FLASH "Good-bye!"

I'm gonna run like Walter Payton

Transcontinental

With one of those long bullets

Building speed behind me.

I'm gonna jump rivers

Like a King Colossal Jesse Owens.

I'm gonna hurdle cities like ... like ...

??? ... like whoever hurdles.

Beep beepin' and zoom zoomin'.

Scramblin' thru the mid-air early alerts.

Bustin' down the sand bag barricades.

Topplin' the "Do Not Enters".

Zig zaggin' the Checkpoint Charlie zebras.

A crazy-legged Jack Fool

With a twenty-megaton shadow.

Beep beepin' as he cris-crosses

The sprinkler swishin' no man's lawn,

Tramplin' down the manicured hedgerows,

Pourin' on the speed as he heads up his

"Hallelujah" touchdown drive for the

"You'll never make it, if I don't."

Bay window, just beyond the rose garden,

Outside that whitest house of all.

Hopin' that some auspicious occasion has got

Just about every politician

On this soon-to-be-gone face of the earth

Eating caviar like balloon heads

At the longest table in the world.

Just cautious enough,

Just conservative enough

To consider ten more seconds of protocol

Before making the inquiry:

"Say George,

Who is that fellow outside

Dashing across the lawn?"

"Why ... it's ...."

ME!

Runnin' the last fifty yards at low altitude

Toward their face-filling detente

Boy-this-sure-looks-good banquet

Inside the checkerboard mullions

Which I crash through

Catching the Wizards of World Peace and Power

Eye to eye as I belly slide atop the table

Spewing beef stroganoff and vichyssoise

Onto their tuxedos

Casting my final ballot in their careers

Of being someplace else safe

When the ball's up in the air

Coming down down down,

Beeping like holy fire,

Tearing the skin loose from the bones.

ME!

Finally havin' my day.

ME!

Finally havin' my say.

ME!

Sliding up to the Five Star Director of all this crap.

(The hardware only seconds behind.)

ME!

Cryin' into their bewildered

'Something-fucked-up' faces:

"Beep! Beep! Beep! Zoom! Boom! Boys.

Take this one

And bank it in Switzerland!"