June 2000

INSULATION
Headphones adjusted to keep the world out,
sunglasses to hide my soul, encapsulated by
technology. Neighbors anonymously seen
in their car, windows up, sunglasses on,
music blaring.

COMPULSION
His long black greasy fingers hold the rag
as he stoops, barefoot. Cleaning the two inch
wide sills, muttering. Folding, wiping, folding, wiping,
cleaning the property before the proprietors arrival.
He never steps back to view his work, just keeps
laboring down the block, cleaning the windows of shops
he'd never be allowed into.

KENNY
With unrestrained glee he whoops and
hollers at the train as it passes. The white
helmet makes his head look even bigger than
it really is. Socks pulled high over enormous
calves, the man-child is oblivious to CNN, and
is ecstatic. He's on his way to Tastee-Freeze,
for a dipped cone on warm day.

HUSTLER
"Hey Mister, wanna party?" His opening
line not his best, but the chiseled face and
rock hard body worth a hundred a pop.
Most times they did all the work, and he'd
watch, detached, wanting a smoke while
their sweaty balding heads bobbed at his center.
Other times required more effort but no more
intimacy, able to time his release to barnyard
grunts and squeals; which oddly caused him to yawn.
He'd collect his wage, fresh from the ATM, before
they'd drive off in their minivans (with soccer ball decals
on the side windows and child seats in the back) to picket
fenced suburban homes, unsuspecting wives, and golden
retrievers made cute by colorful bandanas.
"Hey Mister......."

PASSAGES
Dark alleys threaten and beckon.
Hell for some, shelter to others, my
box, my home, despair my cloak, my face
your shame. Surfacing, blinking into daylight,
scrounging the trash for a meal and a smoke.
A pittance from your privileged pink hand
to my split-nailed, dried and cracked paw,
is that too much to ask as you slink by,
eyes averted?

FRIENDS DISTANT / THREADS
Picked up threads, tugged from their shallow
grave, cut a path in the soil of remembrance .
Resonating in the wind, the familiar chord of acceptance
needs no explanation, enjoyed in the moment, then,
laid to rest until the next reunion.

BIRTH
Cutting the cord of expectation
with the scalpel of reality. No blood,
no gore, just tendons and viscera that will
blacken and dry up in time. Strangely painless,
a blessing in the long run. Able to form new
attachments, without remorse.