You're sitting in a cafe

in the basement of the Student Union

fifteen lamps are burning overhead

making little headway in the overall drabness

of worn formica tables

nonmatching chairs

and a bad mural

painted over the concrete wall

The EXIT sign shines red above the back door

and coffee sits in a heated glass pot

behind the bar

bagels are warmed

drinks cooled

and on display

behind a glass-windowed

trademark Pepsi refrigerator

From down the hall

about fifty video games

shout an independent

tangled and jumble-electronic hustle

for token converted quarters

the girl behind the counter

pours a large coffee

and rings it up with

with two ounces of muenster cheese

melted in the microwave

on a salt bagel

as Bohemian Rhapsody comes on the Jukebox

and you sip your warm tea

you imagine this all at once

as a miserable noise in your head

while only at the beginning

of an already pessimistic

and over sunny winters day

Imagine

Just with a clap of the hands

the jukebox would end

and lamps would be replaced

by flickering candles sitting on each table

and an iron coffee pot

would sit on the fire-lit cast-iron stove

Imagine

With a clap of your hands

the sounds of the arcade ceasing

and the change machines disappearing

and your car parked among hundreds in the lot

is replaced by a horse being tended to in the stable

and networked blacktop roads under traffic lights, street-lamps

and constant repair are replaced by green tinted rocky horse trodden wooded path

Imagine

your wood and plaster glass and concrete homes and apartments being replaced by a stone hearth with a fire always burning that you always stand by after coming in from the cold and a solid stone house built around it

Imagine planes, radio and satellites banished from the sky

and the Earth spreading to the size of a universe as the stars stand unforgotten in the night

Imagine

a holocaust is hundred people dieing

and that you only hear about

sixty days past just by chance

and not on the evening news

or never seeing a person shot

or a car exploding on TV

never hearing about the next great earthquake in California

Imagine with the clap of your hands that your mundane village was the center of the universe and walking cross country or booking passage to a foreign land--unobtainable by tens of years began on a wind driven ship that could be ten to thirty days off course and the slim possibility existed that it may crash into unseen rocks instead of your Chevy being blind sided by a Honda

Imagine tales of the Amazon or having a banana only once in your lifetime and Arnold Schwartzenager being replaced by a rag tag troupe of players that perform simple melodrama written for simple folk

Imagine Long island as the Island Kingdom seeking aid from Connecticut in a war against an aggressive and Spartan Manhattan

or your favorite woolen sweater woven in your own village

Imagine lying in bed at night thinking it must be this dark and tranquil everywhere or that the moon is something that is unreal untouchable, the city always sleeps and the wolves howls scares you from the top of a distant peak

Imagine religion and superstition comfortably answering our questions instead of science telling us that we're worthless

Imagine storing food for winter and your grandfather dieing in his own bed or making a living by using your hands and not always using your fuckin' mind

Think of what technology has given us

and imagine

with the clap of your hands you can wipe all but the base of it away forever

Imagine you could

Would you?