RomeoAGoGo
10/02/06, 12:53 PM
a couple of recent shorties
1) Five Twenty Two Hudson Avenue
Fractured plaster chips stick
to the staircase. Dirt quilts
each step. A wooden door creaks
open. Hardwood floors, once polished
and laminated, now freckled
with crevices. Our new humble abode.
We call it our own.
In the room at the end
of the hallway lives a broken boy.
We're helpless with words,
restricted to the couches cushioning
every moment we have for consolation.
The gas stove still burns, flickering
sapphire beauty before our eyes.
2) Taxicab
"Is it nothing to you,
all you who pass by?"
-Lamentations 1:12.
There's a man
blowing bubbles
on a crowded street corner.
Soapy static spheres rise
to the magnetic pulse
of the clouds.
Passerbys stare in awe,
perhaps even wonder.
Maybe the bubbles serve
as a reminder of childhood
in this stop and go,
walk, do not walk,
left foot, right foot,
march of adulthood.
3) Subway Musician
plucking away at an acoustic guitar
the homeless man in garbage bag drag
lifts his ragged beard to peer
at the quarter dropped at his bare feet.
the musty aftermath of Jack
sheaths the buds of his tongue
and each string flick brings back
memories of each sour sip.
the cardboard box he calls home
doesn't really provide the best acoustics
nor does the shrieking of subway cars
help accentuate the beauty of his music.
4) Southern State
I'm driving on to the end of the parkway
with only the flare of tailights to light my way.
Swollen eyes stay tied to the dividing lines
that make up our lanes, as I push back
these thoughts to another time and place.
There's a lot that needs to be said
and lately it seems there's not enough time,
with all thats rushing by in life,
words that can't be spoken, only cried.
So I drive and cry on a little longer
past the hum of crickets and the sway of trees,
telling myself "I know life isn't all about the pain;
it's what we do with each day that we celebrate."
1) Five Twenty Two Hudson Avenue
Fractured plaster chips stick
to the staircase. Dirt quilts
each step. A wooden door creaks
open. Hardwood floors, once polished
and laminated, now freckled
with crevices. Our new humble abode.
We call it our own.
In the room at the end
of the hallway lives a broken boy.
We're helpless with words,
restricted to the couches cushioning
every moment we have for consolation.
The gas stove still burns, flickering
sapphire beauty before our eyes.
2) Taxicab
"Is it nothing to you,
all you who pass by?"
-Lamentations 1:12.
There's a man
blowing bubbles
on a crowded street corner.
Soapy static spheres rise
to the magnetic pulse
of the clouds.
Passerbys stare in awe,
perhaps even wonder.
Maybe the bubbles serve
as a reminder of childhood
in this stop and go,
walk, do not walk,
left foot, right foot,
march of adulthood.
3) Subway Musician
plucking away at an acoustic guitar
the homeless man in garbage bag drag
lifts his ragged beard to peer
at the quarter dropped at his bare feet.
the musty aftermath of Jack
sheaths the buds of his tongue
and each string flick brings back
memories of each sour sip.
the cardboard box he calls home
doesn't really provide the best acoustics
nor does the shrieking of subway cars
help accentuate the beauty of his music.
4) Southern State
I'm driving on to the end of the parkway
with only the flare of tailights to light my way.
Swollen eyes stay tied to the dividing lines
that make up our lanes, as I push back
these thoughts to another time and place.
There's a lot that needs to be said
and lately it seems there's not enough time,
with all thats rushing by in life,
words that can't be spoken, only cried.
So I drive and cry on a little longer
past the hum of crickets and the sway of trees,
telling myself "I know life isn't all about the pain;
it's what we do with each day that we celebrate."