Prophet (Quippet No. 3)

[Somewhere near miracle street, Pennsylvania Station]

The apocalypse is etched in his sagging eyes

More bombastically than poster-board repentance

Nostradamus lullabies quell his poetry;

His lips parched for the Blood of Christ

Seemless Transit

I know I’ve been lazy this month so here’s another poem-story–subject to updates (since I’ve edited it about 100 times just prior to releasing it). It’s about people I’ve seen on the subway in Boston and New York.

Lento. The red line train came on time for all of my friends. They all ran out of sight in a flash. I want to remember them all. To the right, some big smart legacies going to change the world. To the left, a beautiful lonely mother of two, waiting to escape. Outside, a musician from the ancient orient here to visit. Across from me, she was plain and I didn’t know her name. I didn’t hear her voice. I don’t think she moved much. Not on the outside. Her eyes sagged listlessly and tried to ignore me. But I knew she wasn’t going anywhere. If I could I would ask her:

The sparkle of this city has dazzled you

Hasn’t it?

 

42nd to 34th Street – October 25th

Random thoughts I had on my way back home from seeing Twelfth Night, in three acts

I

The world is my alien. I know as I see the shining happy people pass me by. Like a widowed penguin, I guard my water bottle bought somewhere in Penn Station, for truly it’s the one thing I shall ever own.

A dazzling flash and million eyes beguile me like incandescent death whispers to a fly. Nothing is collimated and everything astray. Soft you now—the optical saltwater must be repressed, consumed, and iced over for the persistence of time. Let all time run out so I never return—choosing instead to laze around, stalking the shining happy people, the burning lovers, the Beatific Romantics so that I may learn their unstrung secrets of attachment.

The persistence of time.