A Demand

(draft of a poem)

Guy at the poetry reading
asks show-offy questions.
No interest in answers.

I gaze at the poet's
dusty shoes.

In a Q & A session
after a Dalai Lama teaching
a man demands he be told
"in a few simple words"

how to achieve Enlightenment.

The kindly teacher,
without any words,
gazes at him intently
for a good while

and begins to weep.