Daily Poetry & Prose

A girl plops down next to me,  then shuffles           to the side,  A stone gangster glances no  glances, he is staring straight ahead    while  the train is zipping by  the background blurrrrrs, silly chatter fills the train car tonight the elevated train in Chicago...  For now, the stakes are low  it is early--there is no cigarette smoke or rowdy boys wanting to make it into a dance The homeless men who will sleep here at 2 a.m. have not yet boarded. It's because they are on the streets yet with their old coats, which they will use as pillows when they come. Photo by Hannah Frank: Photo of unidentified commuter  

The circuit board was cracked and splintered, there on the steps by the alley where the lit cigarette was thrown before the car drove by with the package in the trunk bumping. It was a bomb from the planet of Mars with the whole thing ticking...waiting to blow. The cops were hovering around like bees their tan raincoats flapping as they looked down surveying the scene and writing in books. The grime on the foot print near the tire track was going to crack the case wide open-- if only they could see it.  Infared glasses might help, or x ray vision to determine it was brought here by a man who was just a travelling alien. He was here from Mars, fresh from Mercury, carrying a bomb that would blow up, proving the aliens are just a mob and they saw us here on earth and they thought us humans are not doing a great job. People are dying underneath the tanks factories are blowing out the black smoke we've had all this opportunity... Let's not make our chance at beauty a joke.

The storm is coming, it will start to rain We will bathe ourselves in the new rivers The sparrows know the secrets of the clouds they whisper words that fish and turles hear We bubble up not knowing where to go Gurgling like babes fresh out of the womb These drips will drop down to the hard, dry soil Our time on earth is over far too soon

He walked through the woods, through the alley in the city, through the dreams of his mind, down the tunnel of where she was. He was in the subway tunnel but felt displaced, unknown. The late night train would be rolling through soon, and the rats would scatter and the billboards would shake for an instant, before the magazine ready models went back to their plastic gazes, staring at nothing for eternity. His lips felt dry and wanted a cigarette, a taste of a salty kiss, but it was no more. He grasped the leather strap of his bag and slung it across his shoulder, harder than he needed to, and waited for the train.

The rim around the coffee cup tipped up then down I took a sip It stung like bees criss crossing on my fingertips like a hush up to my lips what was this silence? Dark and mellow strange but never bitter the pitter patter of tiny feet, these long lost demons running down the hall I stopped and counted them all I scooped them up like stars in my hand and shouted to the wind as I released the sand Now, now, NOW! Do I understand?  Do I unfetter? I do understand. I do unfetter. I lose my better half to become whole.

He is in Katmandu sending me letters about the colorful trash I thought we might reconnect like on a rotary dial phone The way time has passed has been less like a banana peel slipping under my foot and like a hood around people kissing in that one Magritte painting She is in China, explainning the training to the people there she said they live in shacks and the sunrise coming up through the smog is other worldly. I meanwhile took a trip to the grocery store. Later in the rain I walked by it again, soaking wet, and bought a poncho made of plastic from a homeless man named Alvin for $6. It was a good purchase and I got what I needed, and he would get supper later.

  The polite way to freak out  The silly way to speak up The bright way to stick up for a friend The old way to drop a line Did we stop doing those things we used to do because a trend came?

  Happenstance was the way things used to be, they danced then set me free.

(2) Hot water makes tea, you steam up with soliloquies ghostly moving through the locked gates you spill suddenly, I am standing on the ground pondering the make-up of your soap box Why do you talk so fast? Rivers always get where they are going. (1) Hot water makes tea, I am so sick of your soliloquies as you reverberate through the locked gates Oil makes black top, I am standing on the ground pondering the make-up of your soap box Why do you talk so fast? Rivers always get where they are going.