You Can Do Anything That You Want Poem by aMan Bloom

You can do anything you want.
You can wear brown socks with black shoes.
You can match plaid with stripes, or wear chartreuse,
Lay salty lox on chocolate cake; fry, not bake…

You can close your eyes and dream you’re in Madagascar
On the curl of a crescent strip with village girls speaking French
Wanting to sell shell necklaces, but you resist,
Because you can want not to want, so they ask for your shirt.
You can watch the clouds morph to velvet flame and turquoise chips,
You can refurbish the mythical men who drowned on ships
Skeletoned in the harbour.

You can do anything that you want.
You can buy a ticket and take a plane to Cappadoccia, and
Not even the Crusaders could do that with God on their side,
Or the zealots who literally de-faced the craven paintings of saints.
They had to hike days and nights, while you only have to try sleeping
On a vinyl lounger in Dubai International on your way to Ankara,
Dreaming of eating a big taffy apple in New York City,
on Times Square wearing a tartan kilt with striped brown socks
And later you stare blankly at ground zero.

You can do anything you want.
Imagine seeing High School Musical on Broadway and being 16 again.
During interval, you can go on a quick vision quest
And meet Zeus and Kali at a braai in Burma,
Attended by the generals tail-gating in their Silver Phaetons,
Who laugh at your jokes. You can do anything.

You want.
You want the world to be a better place, rather than a bitter place,
And the taste of the lox and chocolate cake becomes cloying.