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Richard Wilhelm is a painter and poet who was a founding member of the Ibbetson Street Press and one of the co-editors of the 2000 anthology City of Poets: 18 Boston Voices. His poems have appeared in Spare Change News, The Somerville Times, Ibbetson Street, and several other journals and anthologies.

SEATTLE

Richard Wilhelm

Seattle waterfront, September rain,
traffic steady on the ramp
from Alaskan Highway—
I walk by the Cost Plus Market
down Western Avenue
to Maximilien, upstairs bar,
where, looking out the window,
glass of absinthe in hand,
I wonder:
–We are asked to choose
from a tray of myths,
what is required, what will suffice—
quietly flow or must one shoot
across the sky, brightly burn then blow away?
–Somebody washing dishes in the back,
song on stereo not quite audible
but Kurt haunts this city
like Vincent haunts Arles.

— Richard Wilhelm

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