Living by the Hour - The Poetry Shelter

At around 6, I watched Gary Player
giving tips on getting out of the bunker -

" Remember, Luck is the residue of Desire. "

I sprang from the couch!

A beautiful, moist morning of exploration
and expansion - a quick purposeful shower
to rinse off the death.

To walk, to breath, to feel the special
worn quality of the
neighboring trailors of Silvermead,
faded, their relaxed stature reminiscent
of the Catskills, bungalows and photo albums.

It felt splendid to delete slowly and surely
the memory of yesterday's over the counter attack,
when the cat's water appeared as viscous as chilled vodka,
when that child ran by briefly glancing backward
and I ran as if in a dream: not moving at all.
To be able to try and forget the
tricolored, grotesquely shapen mask to my left and awful
Fagin lurking behind me.
To have the peek-a-boo sunlight and shadows
appearing newer than a stranger's smile rather
than beautified, entertaining,
titillating, frozen treat terrors.
To ease up one's facial contortions, humming
delightfully, to get beyond the proverbial
four walls, the firewalls of a room
where every assault is documented,
stamped and commemorated,
where the huddled masses juggle aspirins,
nervous like Queeg, where Columbia and Uncle Sam
sing about pain and gain,
where every countenance radiates a
presentimentality - awaiting the awkward
bloodletting, the abductions to come;
the bodies hearts each burning
as the tears sizzle and jump,
evaporating quicker than they can be shed,
mouths chanting pharmacological mantras
as models are blown up and dreams shrunk down.

To rush for the paper and have none
manically, freshly seeing;
to have the sweater clad dog-walking lady
look at me oddly as I scribble on a lucky find.
To be woken up, shaken by breezes!
To have my
soul ring.

I came back inside
and the jazz was on quick
for the fluorescent light
is always waiting like
a fortune cookie.

© 1997 Sunshine