Monday, November 30, 2015

Psyched

Earplugs, music:
Tuned in, turned on, dropped out:

Good Morning Starshine
Incense and Peppermints
Monday Monday
 
This could be a psychedelic Monday
Magic carpet subway ride
Even though I’m on the way to work

I could be on a rocket to the fourth dimension
Walking in space
In a boat on a river
Were it not for this ratfucker
Reading this book: Hedge Fund Managers

Which makes me want to punch him in his  face
Which is not mellow or psychedelic or peace and love at all

And it wasn't the music made me change my mind.
It was that he isn't  23 – he’s my age, maybe even older
So maybe a book reviewer or
Desperate business major,  class of ‘92, recently fired, or
something.

He is stardust, he is golden,
He is caught in the devil's bargain

So I didn't punch or spit or scream or cry
But my mellow has been harshed
And I've got to get myself back to the garden.
 
But too late now: now it's time to make the doughnuts.

November 30, 2015

Wednesday, November 25, 2015

The Sun, Like God

Up before the alarm,  I could feel I had slept long enough
And the inkling of natural light told me it was late enough
So out of bed, into the shower, down the stairs into the sunlight:
 
Stricken, I turn to see the sun so red, childbirth straining,
Then walked the several steps more to the subway,
Turning two or three times more to witness the quiet of the dawn
Amid the morning traffic clamor.
 
On the train, she was huge, sleeping,
With one sleeping child to her left, two more to her right.
At Fulton, they got up, and she called to yet another,
"We're getting off!"
A teenage girl, with another child, a boy,
Followed not so closely behind,
And when on the platform the boy went the wrong way,
She yelled, "Where you going? Mom went this way,"
And up the stairs they went as the doors closed, crying.
 
Next stop, Wall Street. I get out,
Reject a complimentary Journal,
Walk toward the water, right at Delmonico's,
Left onto the little alley, right onto Stone,
And another left into the sun, like God: 
Reflected on the Vietnam memorial,
Reflected in the shining sky, singing,
Reflected in the heart that bears witness.
The world is charged, and charges all who ask.
 
November 25, 2015