i am moved

I am the third in 2
the
theater, well, not
really a theater,
but
what passes
for a screening room
at one of those
multi- movie places,
nowadays,
and I carefully
pick
my seat –
last row,
end -- and I settle
down
to the
half bag of
kettle corn I smuggled
in,
quite
smugglerly, ty,
and wait, patiently,
for
the inevitable,
and it happens quicker
even than
a cynic of note
might expect,
this time. with 300-some
other seats from which
to choose
she decides to
sit
right in front
of
me, no lie, not so
much
as
an inch displaced,
and I sigh somewhat audibly, but
force away the urge
to commit mayhem,
if not simple or
aggravated
assault, whatever that is, since
any type
of
assault
would seem
2b
aggravating – yes? – and
I was only left
wondering this:
are you shitting me?
which isn’t at all
thoughtful or philosophical
or
leastways anything worth
repeating.
but
it did
seem right at the
time.

in or out

she is caught,
now,
between two
pulls,
and this is
something
new
to her, because,
it is supposed,
she has
pulled,
before,
but never been pulled
like this.
this is not easy, for if
anyone knows
who’s
entered
a
door
or
left
one,
sometimes it gets
confusing –
push or
pull -- and sometimes
even when
someone has
been
good
enough
to give us proper and specific
directions
we still
do
just
the
opposite. she knows this,
too,
of course,
knows which way
to push
and/or
to pull, but is bewitched,
nonetheless, for if
you – or me,
or her, in this
instance -- spend
any part of a life
simply
pushing, you or me or,
in this case, she
can become
seduced by the other
(or resistant or insistent
enough) so
that the pulls
remain, though
remain they do
unrequited.
it is a satisfying predicament,
then,
but ill-fated,
too,
we all
discover, sooner
or
later, one way
or
another.
alas.

free coffee Wednesday

They sit at a table at the Panera in Darien. She leans forward and talks; he sits back in a “Callaway golf” sweatshirt and listens. She chews, purses her lips, waves her fork and says, “That’s what she did last time. I won’t let her do that, again,” then chews, purses and waves, some more. He still sits, wondering what? (“Good Jesus, is she ever going to stop?” “Mother Mary, I’ve heard all this, before.” Or: “Sacred Heart of Ortuga, I think my head is going to explode.” “Blah, blah, blah, blah.”) Or maybe he does care that she did that before and won’t get away with it, again. Next table over, a younger man in a black overcoat plays with his Blackberry, ear pods in, while his iPhone sits on the table. He obviously does not care what was done before and what might be done again, though this time over someone’s dead body. There are numerous questions, here, of course: who is she; why is he still listening to her, and at what exact time Thursday afternoon will the Blackberry and iPhone microwaves thoroughly fry Spunky's brain? But most importantly there is this: what do these three people have in common – and why? BTW: It’s “free coffee’ day at Panera. Drink hearty. (P.S. Just so you know, she’s now shaking her head; he’s missing two teeth on the back right, lower; Mr. I. M. A. Junior Executive booked.)

ALMOST SUNDAY EVENING

standing room only
at starbucks
on a Sunday afternoon –
friends, chess partners, lovers
(I don’t think so),
conversationalists –
“Having sex or getting it, there’s
a
big
difference” –
and a “tall black,”
which is a beverage, not someone
lanky of
African descent.
muzak is available for
purchase
at
the
register,
with a
grande black, which is
another beverage,
not someone, well,
you get the
idea.
mcdonald’s sits across
the
way, embedded into
an office
building, sort of symbolically
so
(don’t
you
think?)
in the corner, under the
starbucks goddess sign,
sits a semi-attractive blonde,
nodding
to
a guy
who, quite frankly,
looks like
a
douchebag, and she talks,
does
all
the
talking, as a matter of fact, as though
there’s something really important
to
get out
and
over
before “desperate
housewives” airs.
land of the brie
and
the
home of the knave. (jk!)
BTW: starbucks
is hiring.

Oh, Madge

I put my tree on the
porch.
no lights.
no tinsel.
just there, standing, still
in the
stand.
I’m not sure why
except
perhaps it is some attempt
at
homage, which is
a French word
that everyone mispronounces.
it is
not
the cost,
which was 49.95,
because it had a
yellow
sticker.
it is not an attempt
to
elongate the holidays
which, by the way,
were far shorter
this
year, for
me, at
least, and for good
reasons
which can be found
in other places and thoughts
and moments,
other
than here.
it is, instead,
I think,
just
because,
and: why not,
and:
“you don’t know
me,”
and:
mind your own business.
or
not.
I thought about adorning
it with
lights, then thought this: no,
I won’t.
it already has played the
part
of the bear
cycling for the
circus.
enough of that.
now, it might regain
it’s
pastoral
dignity, if for a few moments.
the hole it left in
the forest remains.
but, here,
a bit of
homage. or at least a thought
of it and for it.

Harry & Tommy & Teddy

Harry and
Tommy
and Teddy probably will
not remember
the Saturday
afternoon, so I will remember it
for
them, at the
Dancing Crane
Cafe
at the Central
Park Zoo,
when they sat,
waiting for their hot pretzels,
together,
Harry in the lime-est
green snowsuit and hat
imaginable
and
barely able to move
his
arms,
and their mom, or
their aunt, it
was, possibly,
finally bringing the snack
and telling them
that her
favorite things was
(were?)
the
penguins,
and Tommy
and
Teddy nodding,
while Harry just
sat,
pretty much immobile.
outside, it was
17
degrees &
sunny,
and the world was
speeding
by,
on its various
crash
courses,
but,
inside, time had
slowed
to a giggle
and a grin and
a swallow and Harry
finally
was
freed
from
his
parka,
and burped out
a
smile, and the man
watching
tried to recall similar
scenes and moments
with his own
Harry and Tommy and
Teddy
and wondered if anyone
ever
thought to
remember
them
for
him.

GOODBYE, AMERICA (he said)

I watched his face,
his smile,
heard what he had to say
and came
to
this:
how small he
looked and it struck
me as
incongruous how a
man supposed to be so
large, expected to be
so large,
looked so
tiny
and a swell of anger
began
(and
rattles in me still)
over
how some
one
could do so little with
so
much.
the emptiness.
the damage.
the dead and the lives
so much less,
now.
the carnage.
and so comes a new
day,
a new man
a new idea, and while throngs
wait with breath bated
and with hopes
rekindled
I am left with this:
more us,
perhaps,
and less him.
and, isn’t that the idea of
THE
GREAT
EXPERIMENT,
after all.
we got lazy with our
lazyboys
and American
idolators
and pulling ourselves
up with the bootstraps
of others.
now
is
the
time
to retake not control,
for that
seems
far too rife with conceit,
but
a partnership, the partnership
in
the
dream,
whatever that now means
to you and you and me
and
them,
and to
let
the
answer – the answers –
be in the doing
not
in
what
gets
done. That was America.
Ours.
Not his.
Never his.
But finally, ours,
maybe,
again.
the opportunity.
another
chance.