Each day must be settled,
Tidy and complete,
And every day people must
File down familiar,
Everyday streets.
These working women and men must,
Get home, get their supper and then,
Prop up their feet.

--Pretty well satisfied with the days work done,
With, the every day death of the sun.

    This I'd imagine is how it must be,
When dusk leaches all of the color out,
Of each of the trees,
I that hour,
That surrounds,
The sun's demise,
At the end of a day.

When the night begins,
Something is not right,
An alarm is ringing,
A dark room is flooding with,
Fluorescent light.
A still body starts from a restless sleep, sits bolt upright,
And pauses, to take a slow a ragged breath.
It is time to be awake.

    Miles away and in the dark again,
A gentle hand gives your prone body a shake,
And whispers an alarm in a voice meant to soothe,
And proffers a cup of bitter black brew,
And so you get up the wires so tight in,
Your arms and legs they ache.
An ungentle reminder
It's time to awake
Hard to believe
It's time for the walk of the caffeine zombies.
--Damned in the absence,
Of virtue or sin.
Once the day is settled the night may begin
I remember,

    . . . shuffling out to my car,
Into the electric light, clutching my cup thinking,
'Stumble-bum-cup-of-tin," or some such
Rattled nonsense, but you know,
It's better then thinking nothing.

    . . . down streets which turn,
Gray and white, once the shadows settle in,
To the wrinkles and gutters which,
Have been etched in to my skin,
From smiling too much , too taut, too thin,
So I should'nt have to say anything . . .

About The Interstate,
Enough Time Spent.
I should'nt have to say anything
I shoud'nt have to drag up,
Those tired thread bare cliches.
Or go over and over the long conceits
On traffic jams, to be,
Forced into metaphors
Like "twin strings of pearly halogen lights."
Enough time spent. I should'nt have to say.
It should be enough that we know that it's out there.
The Inter-State, and especially at night when . . .

    . . . I remember half a joke,
A misplaced fable,
A disjointed anecdote,
A cautionary tale no less,
A parable with the dark, with the
Dark, dark, dark,
Hidden moral.
"And so it goes . . . "

"And so, the rag-tag-man stumbled in,
Clutching his cup looking for a fill-up and a friend.
The all-night cashier seemed familiar,
Though her smile was dead and white,
Her eyes were dull and vacant though,
They glittered in the tired fluorescent light.
Her face a perfect make-up mask which,
concealed every sign of life,
they never spoke,
It's just as well,
For when he turned away
Wide awake and scared as hell,
His single thought was,
'That was close.'
That was close."

     . . . but we are not all dead yet,
No, I've a friend or two,
And we are not quite dead yet,
Though we don't let it show except for,
The smallest of smiles, a small,
Cryptic grin, that proceeds the story
The one that begins with . . .

"God,
I am
Beginning
To think that there's something wrong with the engine,
As soon as it started it began to ping,
It hadn't hardly warmed up before,
A rattling began,
And, once it took off,
It knocked so loud, man,
    You would'nt believe the din.
You know you can only run something
So hard for so long until it starts to give in,"
Then we'll smile for emphasis as we say it again,
"I'm beginning to think there's something wrong with the engine."

if-only-i-could-find-a-place-to-sit
some-clean-well-lighted-place
if-only-i-could-find-a-place
to-rest-my-weary-arms-and-legs
i-would-gently-cradle-heavy-heavy-head
i-would-allow-my-eyes-to-shut
all-but-just-a-little-bit
and-i-would-not-smile
but-neither-would-i-frown
instead-i-would-keep
my-face-so-blank-and-still
that-those-around-might
well-believe-that
i-was-dead.

    If only I could find a place to sit.

    But I have lingered,
In the blank spaces, long empty stretches,
Of dark leading only into the dark,
Possessing neither origin nor end,
Only the hours that pass,
Without speech or thought,
Shoulder to shoulder, heads bowed,
With only  the the silent ritual,
Only the fever and the flurry of hands,
Describing in perfect empty circles,
The slacked-jawed hieroglyphics,
Of abstract production
and they all know that once this night done,
the day will begin.
 
 
 
 
 
 

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