Friday, June 19, 2009

Subway Station Starling

The slick reflective cobblestone
makes raindrops dance in puddles
when they touch. 

The heavy sun-bleached awning
of the old antique shop
cascades mist
as an urban waterfall.

Finding its way down, 
    d
      o
        w
           n ,
into the dark of sidestreet drains
and dampening the box-homes 
of the homeless. 

Alleycat sings its song
up to an apartment brick wall 
in the darker side of town-
drained out by a window unit,
made to cool one 
lonesome inhabitant.

Sleeping alone
on a mattress on the floor. 
Debating with one's self
never
produces a winner. 

As a light flickers 
strobe morse code
inside a vacant phonebooth,
a man walks- 
with no umbrella-
whistling in freeverse a sad tune.

Starling bright,
singing under a curtain 
of fog and street lights.

A single car
drives to a curb corner
and stops.
Inside a man sighs
and wonders what went wrong.

All the songbirds lonesome
collectively agree
"The city isn't the place for me."

And headlights reflect
off wet decrepit streets
under those leaving all of it behind.
Down the highway,
to a place with trees:
"That city was never the place for me."


All the Hanging Tapestries

The girl with gardens in her hair
watches the sun rise
from a Mexican blanket
up on top of the hill
overlooking the construction site

She cries
"What's left here for me
but puppet strings and blasphemy?
I'm so sick of masquerades
and sitting alone while the whole world fades"

The boy with moonlight in his smile
drives straight into the horizon
just trying to get away 
but love seems more impossible
with every exit he takes

He sings
"What things lay ahead of me
but a broken heart and monotony?
I'm so sick of being alone
and I'm never going home"