Archive for September, 2008

In all my life I never knew the like.
It hailed; it snowed; it lightninged all at once.
I opened my wallet to loan friends some money
But found only old documents
Grade school report cards
Hotel receipts from forgotten vacations
Foreign currency exchange slips
Little leather pockets unfolded and opened out to satchels
Holding manuscripts in crumbling envelopes
Journals of notes for stories I never wrote
My friends gave up and said good-bye
On the library steps I saw the discarded remains
Of a stoop sale including a headless ceramic dog
Posed on a pedestal that said, “Snowy.”

Predawn clouds in the east
Are Homer’s rosy red
Signifying something auspicious
A gusting warm wind offers hope
Of a break in the unseasonal heat
On the western horizon sits a fat full moon
Like a drowsy graveyard shifter
Having a coffee and doughnut
Before heading off to bed

Here’s what I learned
During my own night’s work:

Time-lapse film of trees raised in art galleries
Shows that they do indeed move nocturnally
Tenderly intertwining their limbs

Some people will continue to drive
Small sportscars at insane speeds
Even on highway ramps into office corridors
Until their roadsters are miniaturized
And I snatch them up like frantically buzzing insects
To flip them down the hall

I can spend much too much time
Selecting CDs for a drive
While my family and friends are waiting in the car
Probably cursing me
I feel terrible and yet I just can’t find
That Nuggets disc with Land of a Thousand Dances

You can load me up with a huge backpack
Full of theater props and costumes
And I can still skitter down the steps
Of the old elementary school
Like Fred Astaire on crystal meth