Pee-wee Herman Said It’s Like You’re Unraveling a Big Cable-knit Sweater that Someone Keeps Knitting and Knitting and Knitting and Knitting….

It’s like you’re driving on a dead-end road,
and they keep on building more road.

It’s like you’re a donkey following a carrot 
and also dangling the carrot.

It’s like you’re a boy in gray suit and bow tie,
searching for a stolen bicycle.

It’s like you’re a swindling psychic,
an escaped convict, a truck-driving ghost,

a train-hopping hobo, a rodeo bull, and a
studio head. Ancient Zen master Kyōgen said,

It’s like a man up a tree
hanging from a branch by his mouth.

It’s like you recovered your stolen bicycle,
and suddenly a pet store’s on fire.

It’s like you unlock a chimpanzee’s cage, and now
the chimpanzee is helping you liberate cats

and dogs and rats and doves and ducks and
goldfish. It’s like, with a grimace of disgust,

you grab the snakes last, staggering
through billows of smoke.

It’s like, all the while, your bicycle is there,
leaning on its kickstand, unlocked.

It’s like a bicycle and a boy, a hobo and a ghost,
a chimpanzee that’s running from a cage.