The art museums are all closed;
the athletic clubs too, so I head out
for a walk in search of some street art.

A brick wall along the path
wears the freshly painted graffiti tag: Lazlo.
I immediately think of Casablanca.

In the Michael Curtiz film, Victor Lazlo is the leader
of the French resistance. The writers, Murray Burnett
and Joan Allison, in their play, Everybody Comes to Rick’s,

gave Lazlo the first name, Victor, as if they anticipated
the defeat of fascism. But maybe they were just being optimistic.
Lazlo leading the patrons of Rick’s Cafe Americaine

in the singing of the Marseilles drowning out the Nazi’s
Die Wacht am Rhein, is arguably the most powerful scene
ever filmed. I imagine that’s why this new Lazlo

picked this alias. And we sure could use a new Lazlo
leading a resistance movement right now. After all,
looks what’s going on in our own Casa Blanca.                        

It became clear
not only that things
will never 
get back to normal

it became clear
that things
have never been
normal

that what normal
would have been
had normal ever existed
is non-existence

that the fundamental question
philosophers and physicists
have been trying to answer
since the dawn

of human consciousness
is why something
exists
when nothing should

not even
nothingness.