Mehr Licht

were the last words
of Goethe on his
deathbed as the darkness
closed around him.
But Mayor Licht
was also the chief
executive of Providence,
Rhode Island in the early
Eighties. I’m dreaming
of the best political
commercial of all time—
Weimar in the 1830s,
Goethe gasping “Mehr licht,
mehr licht”—and suddenly
Mayor Harry Licht of Providence
appears to pump the paw
of the poet, and save the day.

Source: Poetry (July/August 2009)