— Poetry & Lyric —

Wallace Stevens’s Five Hundred Ways of Looking at the Indianapolis 500

I
Among acres of bleachers,
The only moving things
Were 33 race cars, a drunk puking in the aisle,
And tens of thousands of fidgety spectators, who were,
After all,
Sitting on metal bleachers.

II
I was of three minds,
Like a man
Faced with a choice of three overpriced domestic beers
That all taste the same.

III
The racecar whirled into a wall.
It was a large part of the SportsCenter highlights.

IV
A man and a woman
Are one
In the back of a pickup camper
On the lawn of a homeowner
Who lives near the track
And charges $10 for parking
On race day.

V
I do not know which to prefer,
The race cars whistling by
Or being too drunk to tell which car is which.

VI
Ice-cold beer fills the masses
With barbaric intent
Under the shadow of a pagoda
That seems inexplicably out of place
At a race track.

VII
O thin men of Indiana,
Why do you fetishize fast cars?
Do you not see cars
Everywhere
Every single day?

VIII
I know strange accents
That prevent lucid speech.
But I know, too,
To expect that
From race fans.

IX
When the driver sped out of sight,
It marked the edge
Of one of many circles.
You seriously can’t tell
What’s happening from the stands
Because the cars appear and disappear
In seconds.

X
At the sight of race cars
Flying around the track,
Connoisseurs of fiery wrecks
Will yelp sharply.

XI
He rode through west Indianapolis
In an open-wheel car.
Once, a fear pierced him,
In that he mistook
A shadow for a state trooper
Before he remembered he was on a race track.

XII
The bathroom floor is sticky with errant urine.
The race must be well under way.

XIII
It was spring all day.
It was sunny and pleasant all day.
Hey, isn’t this supposed to be
A day to honor veterans,
Or is that tomorrow?
What’s the difference between
Memorial Day, Veterans Day,
And that other day we get off from work?
I can never keep them straight.

XIV
Oh, nuts to this endeavor.
I fail to see
The point of
Cars driving around in circles
For hours and hours on end.
Surely, few valet parking attendants
Enjoy this so-called sport.

XV
Sorry if the title was misleading.
Good luck suing
For false representation.
I’m a lawyer, bitch.