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And Here Is No Great Matter
04:33 Mar 23 2009
Times Read: 1,139






I threaded a needle with dental floss

And made me a man.

Sewn together with vapors

By my indifferent hand,

All Hail the Coffee Spoon Man!



Hallway to hallway

He echoes along,

Presuming a word

He might like with me.

The woman in 17B

Adjusts a stocking

And turns her key.

The art of it all

Amuses me.



Many walls still ahead

In the nautilus shell,

And spraypaint signs

Lamenting chaos

And cruel design,

Some to leave

And some to find.

Just any kind of sign...



One night,

While adjusting my shawl,

He croaked about Lazarus

Telling all,

But the horizon

Seeped through him

And painted patterns

On the wall.



Besides,

That is not it at all.

That is not what I meant,

At all.

How Long Is One Moment Of Perfect Beauty?
22:32 Mar 02 2009
Times Read: 1,222






“The heat,” I tell myself as I wage war once again with the corroded latch, finally managing to hoist the old pane and frame above my head. I might lean out above the street, my shirtsleeves pushed up my arms to coax the greedy breezes to my skin. The night has been long and I am tired of my own company. Even the street scene below offers little distraction. A child’s scooter rusts against an overfilled trashcan and I feel a sad kind of kinship.



I watch as a panel van takes the turn a bit too fast. In a hurry...the world so hurried around me. It throws crazy patterns of light across the corner of the alley, illuminating it briefly in angling rays that are too fast for my eyes to interpret, too fast to shed light on my days and ways. The sigh is half expelled from my lips when it catches in my throat. The last fingertip of light clings to the broken streetlamp and for a moment, there is no doubt…a man is seated there in the shadows, leaning back with his eyes closed while he plays a violin. In less than a second, the revelation is gone.



I train my eyes again and again on the spot where the streetlamp melts away into the darkness. I can discern no movement. So deeply cloaked in his shadows, the man might not even exist. For a moment, I argue with my eyes and my brain about what I have seen. A trick of the light? Am I seeing things? I can already feel the old familiar melancholy settling along my shoulders like the shawl of an old man who shivers before the fire.



The window itself seems to accuse me, “Who is the still life?” In truth, I feel like a bowl of wax fruit placed just so on a table, poorly rendered by an inexpert hand. I lean farther forward through the screenless frame. I listen carefully for a single note to carry across to me, but the night is still, holding her breath.



It is too hot to grab my sweater and I stare dumbly at the door, unsure of how to proceed. I don’t need my keys, but there is a ritual to be met. One cannot just step out into the night without taking something…some provision, some talisman to place in a pocket or wrap around you. I settle on my wallet. The well-worn leather slips easily and familiarly into my back pocket and I take the stairs two at a time, already feeling lighter for the decision to go. As I step through the front door, I feel like a Selkie, leaving Roan Inish, shedding my sealskin to become human.



It is only a few steps to the broken streetlamp. The air is thick with humidity and I push my body through it, forging a path to the shadowed man. I am certain that he will not be there, and then, a step more reveals the silhouette of an old, deeply wrinkled fellow. His clothes are as much the night he wears as they are fabric. His dusty right hand supports the neck of a violin while the left bears forward the bow, playing lightly and with considerable skill upon no strings. The instrument has no strings, but the beatific expression upon the wizened old face speaks of sweet lilting tunes that are just outside my range.



A garbage truck rolls by in the early hints of morning, removing the rusty scooter and an old wallet. It spills some trash along the curb. A few feet have walked past, but nobody has looked upon us, though we must make a curious sight to any who would notice. I don’t know how long I have been sitting here at his feet, but I have begun to hear the music, far away like an angel’s promise. I watch the grace of his hands as though I am afraid I will never see them again. I will be here until I hear that song, full and sweet. If his arms weary, I will offer to take up the instrument a while and give him rest. I am alive in the shadow of his shadow.