The train sways unsteadily, and
rolls over yet another high-stilted trestle.
Couplings clang, whistles blow as
my nervous stomach does a swan dive
splashing into a silver string of boiling water
a mile or so below.
Out my iron-windowed compartment
Northern landscape. Trees & water.
Water everywhere.
Not like the desert of L.A. at all.
Not like the harbor freeway.
Not full of frightened eyes rushing from work.
No, just trees. So many trees I feel dwarfed,
drowning in these encroaching trees.
Above the trees, hunched clouds
full of rain scrape their sexual bellies
across the green canopy of treetops.
Then
a patch of sunlight. A sudden furrowed
field ---a man in coveralls, a jaunty
straw hat & a bright orange
bandanna tied round his neck,
as he sits on a yellow tractor.
Wiping his brow, he stops to watch the
train. We see each other. He tips his
hat, by reflex, I open my hand in salute.
We connect.
We watch each other out of sight
until he's just a distant color
pressed into the impression of a landscape.
And in this moment, I wish to be him.
To fade away, fade faraway
atop his tractor, plowing
this field. I need to take up his life.
Snake-like I want to shuffle
off my dead skin, leave my dry life,
and discard my city dirt.
I could see in his eyes
or maybe I imagined it---he wished
he was the haunted one---sitting on the
train---unshaved & speeding South.
Watching his dot of color
fade & disappear, I think of
the many people staring
right now at someone else,
wishing it were possible
to become them.
Needing---
needing to leave everything--all of it
behind. To just check out.
To go forever missing---
to give up on the harshness
give up on the pain
give up on the incertitude of breath
give up on the fear of eternal night
give up on a world grinding off its own flesh.
yes and again yes. . .
To live a new life as someone else,
someone without these damn darkling thoughts.
Unexpectedly, the train whistle
shrills-----calling me back to myself
from far across Seattle Sound
and my train rushes forward===windows
on fire with the reflected sun.
THEY
Here is perfume of crushed roses,
a framed jesus walking petaled walls,
here they walk between doilies & new testaments.
They appear like polka dot flowers in jersey,
plugging up passages in supermarkets,
counting paper clips, unfolding coupons,
cashing a single check each month.
Not like the exaggerated women of Baudelaire
thrown like a projected skeleton before a Paris sun.
But quietly—some drawing breath in pain
they come back to their room,
where long into the night climbing moon
they listen to distant police sirens
& whirling helicopters
street sounds---squealing tires---women screaming.
They start at each real & imagined sound as
terrorists from the television news
come for their sex,
they touch bibles & check
the locks & chains again.
Will the sun ever come again?
At last the first frail flashes of sunlight,
show a preamble---then the genesis of another day,
opening with sure fingers white reality
a mailbox a 97 chevy a black dog
a milkman or is it a mailman?
They rise to fish teeth in glasses.
Take tea in a hand painted tea cup,
never mind its chipped, things simply are.
As they open the window shade
to stare at the new grey day,
death does not seem so real now.
It is not unquiet in a quiet room,
it is quiet in a quiet room,
here is perfume of crushed roses,
a framed jesus walking petaled walls.
ICARUS
Perched on the sand a man rocks tentatively
to-an-fro on his walking cane, digging in the
sand with his feet he pushes against a big wind.
Mr. Icharus---a strange bird--in formal attire
is ready for flight.
Behind him on the strand a knot of old men
backsides fused to benches watch the flower lady's hips
twisting & bouncing as she trots down the boardwalk.
After she passes the men---their grained & pebbled fingers
dance deadly on their canes, their eyes exclusively focused
on the bucking of the sea.
Mr. Icarus snaps his top hat to shape with a pop,
spins his silver cane---and the wind
fills the tail of his tuxedo like a plumed bird.
The strandmen their blood runing stronger now
yearn for a any kind
of excitement---as the wind grows.
Then in a motion of total surprise
Mr. Icarus on the beach rises toward the sun,
hat and cane in hand---his jacket filling out
like wings in the big wind,
and the strandmen cry out with amazement. . .
"OOOO & AHHH"
For an eternal smiling moment Icharus seems suspended in air,
then---sweating profusely---he falters and rolls head over heel
down the sandy beach as a dog barks and follows.
The strandmen grumble & spit---one lights a pipe,
one cries out, "Damn fool..." Disgust fills the air.
The wind falls away as the men settle on the bench,
like so many stone figurines in a cemetery.
