The building was struck by a plague
Of davenports, sofas and divans,
So many that the freight elevator
Was overloaded and stuck in the basement.
Before me and the boys headed out
For beers on route four I lay down
And gazed at the swirling galactic pageant
In the summer afternoon treetops.
One wants to be helpful, even in Limbo
Where most of the work is waiting
For something to happen. Or is it?
Maybe one doesn’t quite comprehend
The tasks at hand. We tried so hard
To get down to cases, to face the music.
Pelted by hazelnuts in the swimming pool,
Made furious by dawdlers in the library,
I sadly watched my last smoke
Turn to mush in the rain. Wasted
Hours of a vacation day
Looking for a place to stay.
We polished pianos at the outpatient clinic
Where a headless man wandered the halls
Pleased by his reflection in red beret and pony tail.
At the bottom of Yankee Road our big car
Swerved into a cornfield because
Bags of mirrors blocked the brake pedal.
I swam across the floor of the lecture hall
While the professor paused to make a point
About easy chairs and extracurricular affairs.
Directing that vampire play and wondering
How to get the coffins on and off?
Put ‘em on casters, that’s what I say!
Take the stage door and the back stairs.
Stroll down to the pond across the piles of typewriters.
Forget your fedora? Get a ski cap from the second-hand store.
How sweet when old friends from drama school
Fly over Grampa’s farm and call Happy Birthday
From an airplane’s open cargo bay.
