BUGS

Stream-of consciousness

The sky spits occasional drops

at the feet of the sun

in an unresolved conflict from way back

and a car swishes past

an important man in a suit with wet spots

who does not know everyone

is free with nowhere to go

but has a reason to smile as the young redhead

gives a flash of leg in the back door of a yellow hack

she wonders how she’ll handle herself

today in that low gray building

where a hundred people handle themselves

well enough to pay the rent and keep the water running

in apartments with limp sheets on unmade beds

the cabby asks, “Where?” and flips the meter on,

punches his way into the road

and thinks about the bath

he had no time to take this morning,

shifts a little to the left in a greasy wife-beater

and grunts at the horn from too close behind,

stomps the brakes for a cheap pedestrian

who stares wild-eyed through the windshield on his way to

the diner where he always eats breakfast,

poached eggs on rye toast, a side of sausage

and five refills of coffee, as the thought of Sylvia

gnaws at the back of his head,

he takes two aspirin for the pain,

leaves a small tip for Mack

to wipe up with the crumbs

then look at the two coins a slow minute,

drop them into his apron pocket with the cigarettes

and rumpled matchbook before he shuffles

into the back room for a swig of Mad Dog

the tired woman slid under the bars at him

in the liquor store

behind her heavy lids, she thinks the day is so heavy

bits of it keep falling out of the sky as water

spit at the feet of the sun

in and unresolved conflict older than

sin.

Reviews

[jacob erin-cilberto]

This is like Lady Madonna meets Eleanor Rigby meets the Nowhere Man.
a slice of life in a place where no one feels there is a way out, so they just accept the tired old routines...
They relate to each other...all with heavy lids inhabiting heavy days.
You create such a mood with your description here...I felt I was one of these people immersed in this world.
j.