"A Plea from The Manhattan Bagel Shop" by Mel C. Thompson

A Plea from The Manhattan Bagel Shop
by Mel C. Thompson
San Francisco, California

For the love of God,
Please, please,
Do not resolve anything.

And never, ever, ever,
Get “to the bottom”
Of any complicated issue.

Let the the sleeping dog
Of meaning lie.
Spare us the fangs

Of love and clarity.
For the love of God,
Stay away from the heart

Of the matter. There lay
The carnage of doctrines,
Those blunt instruments

Of heavy-handed murder.
No, no, in the name
Of all that is sacred,

I beg of you . . . not
Another lecture on facing
Death bravely. An honest

Panic trumps your logic
Says The House Dealer.
This kind of kindness

Is a toxin not covered
By the Kyoto accords.
Pray for ambiguity.

In 1989 Mel moved to San Francisco and formed Cyborg Productions, a well-known underground press in the Bay Area in the early 1990s. His own work has been published in many mainstream and small press magazines such as the Bay Area Guardian, The Chiron Review, The Haight Ashbury Literary Journal and Lynx Eye.

Thompson’s civil rights work for free speech and his legal work for California workers resulted in worldwide publicity in such outlets as USA Today, The Los Angeles Times, NPR Radio, Canadian Public Broadcasting and KRON Television. He was later a radio personality and musical performer on KMEL and appeared on several other radio stations.

In recent years his essays have been published in the East Bay Express, Salon.Com and the Tokyo Progressive, and his poetry has recently appeared in The Texas Poetry Calendar Anthology and The Poets From Hell Anthology of Bay Area Poets.

(photo by Donald Curtis)