To read @ BP
Waiting for James
I.
I met a man the other night
Who somehow knows the answers to all the questions
That burn in my brain like a Los Angeles fire.
New acquaintances transform now into floating ghosts,
Unable to respond to any salutations I might send like messages tied to the legs of a carrier pigeon.
We all desperately attempt to recreate those particular situations
In which we were briefly happy.
Two bladed regret pits the evilness of the pounding smoke machines
Against the creeping dread of the silence of my bedroom.
This is not such a bad place to wait, after all, for my rare friend.
It is 10:46 pm and he says he will be here sometime after 1.
Some nights the magic works, other nights it does not,
But it's 48 hours and counting since the world was slightly mine.
II.
Please, tutor me in the ways of the darkness.
I do not know whether it is worth it to wait for hours in the black sauna
That shelters its early morning dancers from the winter chill
For the seemingly distant possibility of some social satisfaction.
I am tired! but it would be silly to give up now, after all this time spent.
At last the scholar arrives.
He has no trouble finding girls with whom to dance,
A stark contrast to the solitary creature who spends the night sitting on a bench in the corner.
Then just as things are getting good
The cuckoo clock strikes 2 and all hell breaks loose.
Once security is re-achieved,
I wait with umbrella upside down for a raindrop.
Every time he speaks it’s a miracle.
III.
I do not wish to scare off the startled buck
Who has graced my backyard.
He naturally did not expect me to appear
In his colorblind world,
But in simultaneously resisting and embracing the darkness,
I have forged a nook, however tiny,
In the great apple tree.
I must content myself with leaving bread crumbs for the geese.
I’ve been going out at night so that I can write poems that are more than trivial
Like the words of those who are confined to friaries
Or family houses.
It’s mere serendipity that I even ended up in the same room as him,
When I could have been staring at the lighter clad dancing
To music anyone could have chanced to hear on the radio.
IV.
In person he is much different.
In person he invites me deeper into his web,
So happily stuck like an insect waiting for its spider.
When corresponding via electronic post though
I anxiously await his next words,
Fearful that my megaphone is pointed at the earth’s core
And that no birds will be able to hear my valedictory from loneliness
That I so fervently proclaim.
He will return soon to the elysium of academia.
Then I will be left searching through the scrapbook of the night,
Trying to locate the newspaper clipping
That contains a photograph of the subject for whom I yearn.
Come summer, he says, he will have all the time in the world,
Back in Brooklyn where he was bred, born and raised,
If I can only wait some more.
V.
My night now hangs fire while everyone else, it seems, is having a good time.
I am waiting for James.
Surely, I ponder, everything will be all right then,
So long as my own consciousness does not short circuit,
Sending me home on the train that for some reason is running on the wrong line.
The sterile stench of the night’s poor children
Pervades my nasal passages
That lead to a brain that serially attempts suicide,
Despite the best efforts of its mind.
At 1 am, when the bell chimes one singular toll,
That is when I can begin to expect him to show up here.
It’s 10:46.
Once he has read tomorrow’s letters,
I must be patient if I wish to ever see him again.
I am not so unusual in his city,
A friend but one of many.
But this bearded gentleman whom I have found in the lyceum of ink
Is perhaps the key to the door that floats before me,
Never allowing passage except when I have someone beside me
Who can attract girls, and dance with them.
I.
I met a man the other night
Who somehow knows the answers to all the questions
That burn in my brain like a Los Angeles fire.
New acquaintances transform now into floating ghosts,
Unable to respond to any salutations I might send like messages tied to the legs of a carrier pigeon.
We all desperately attempt to recreate those particular situations
In which we were briefly happy.
Two bladed regret pits the evilness of the pounding smoke machines
Against the creeping dread of the silence of my bedroom.
This is not such a bad place to wait, after all, for my rare friend.
It is 10:46 pm and he says he will be here sometime after 1.
Some nights the magic works, other nights it does not,
But it's 48 hours and counting since the world was slightly mine.
II.
Please, tutor me in the ways of the darkness.
I do not know whether it is worth it to wait for hours in the black sauna
That shelters its early morning dancers from the winter chill
For the seemingly distant possibility of some social satisfaction.
I am tired! but it would be silly to give up now, after all this time spent.
At last the scholar arrives.
He has no trouble finding girls with whom to dance,
A stark contrast to the solitary creature who spends the night sitting on a bench in the corner.
Then just as things are getting good
The cuckoo clock strikes 2 and all hell breaks loose.
Once security is re-achieved,
I wait with umbrella upside down for a raindrop.
Every time he speaks it’s a miracle.
III.
I do not wish to scare off the startled buck
Who has graced my backyard.
He naturally did not expect me to appear
In his colorblind world,
But in simultaneously resisting and embracing the darkness,
I have forged a nook, however tiny,
In the great apple tree.
I must content myself with leaving bread crumbs for the geese.
I’ve been going out at night so that I can write poems that are more than trivial
Like the words of those who are confined to friaries
Or family houses.
It’s mere serendipity that I even ended up in the same room as him,
When I could have been staring at the lighter clad dancing
To music anyone could have chanced to hear on the radio.
IV.
In person he is much different.
In person he invites me deeper into his web,
So happily stuck like an insect waiting for its spider.
When corresponding via electronic post though
I anxiously await his next words,
Fearful that my megaphone is pointed at the earth’s core
And that no birds will be able to hear my valedictory from loneliness
That I so fervently proclaim.
He will return soon to the elysium of academia.
Then I will be left searching through the scrapbook of the night,
Trying to locate the newspaper clipping
That contains a photograph of the subject for whom I yearn.
Come summer, he says, he will have all the time in the world,
Back in Brooklyn where he was bred, born and raised,
If I can only wait some more.
V.
My night now hangs fire while everyone else, it seems, is having a good time.
I am waiting for James.
Surely, I ponder, everything will be all right then,
So long as my own consciousness does not short circuit,
Sending me home on the train that for some reason is running on the wrong line.
The sterile stench of the night’s poor children
Pervades my nasal passages
That lead to a brain that serially attempts suicide,
Despite the best efforts of its mind.
At 1 am, when the bell chimes one singular toll,
That is when I can begin to expect him to show up here.
It’s 10:46.
Once he has read tomorrow’s letters,
I must be patient if I wish to ever see him again.
I am not so unusual in his city,
A friend but one of many.
But this bearded gentleman whom I have found in the lyceum of ink
Is perhaps the key to the door that floats before me,
Never allowing passage except when I have someone beside me
Who can attract girls, and dance with them.