If I were living …

in Prague or Paris
I would be an outsider
without doubt … with
nothing meaningful to say …
my twenty-five maybe fifty
words of Czech would be
just enough to order beer
or some sort of coffee …
my perhaps five hundred
words of French would be
not enough for much more …
I would have nothing to say
to anyone … day after day …
night after night … but I
would feel authentic
being an outsider
in Prague or Paris —
in complete contrast
to how I feel more and more
about being an outsider where
I “continue to continue”

(to quote Paul Simon’s lyrics in a song sung by Simon and Garfunkel) …

D.A. (David) Pratt “continues to continue” in a comfortably conventional community in Canada … he is genuinely concerned about the burgeoning stupidity that seems to be virtually everywhere …