April 9, 2004

• together

   

  Bitten by the thick Roman jaws of a gristly conductor, a hollow tin whistle signaled you were late.  It was a cold afternoon as you made your way through a gelatinous mass of tired folk – each man and woman lost to the slow-moving, thick nature of a late city afternoon.  You leapt down the stairs while jostling cups of steaming coffee and knocked loose those sandwich crumbs drenched with buttery racing emotion. 

   

  Pardon you?

   

  Cutting through the crowd, you made it to the turnstiles, funneled into a hypnotic string of spinning clicks.  Echoing through a grey, fluorescent hallway, a voice declared a missing child.  You imagined him wandering in search of his mother, bewildered and confused by the simultaneous blur of familiar and unfamiliar.  Each component was nothing new: a knee, a hemline, a khaki pleat, a gold watch, a spit-shined shoe.  Or the sounds of feet shuffling, ladies coughing, teens laughing, hollow treble beats spilling heavy metal through headphones.  In pieces, is anything novel?  But thrown together into one collective sweaty, breathing, ebbing whole, he was crying.  Without his father, each part was a stranger, every color was a new blue, an exotic red; nothing was really the same. 

   

  They were on their way to a hockey game.

   

  You made it into the open, flanked by lockers.  Down to his chest, his beard covered a tie-dye shirt, his odor waking the dead.  Behind you, he fumbled with his key and eyes darting furtively, your backside was watched warily.  In your hurried passing, he opened the tiny door and took inventory of his possessions – an old suit, a spongy apple, a picture of the family he left behind.  He was a disenchanted patrician chasing Howard Hughes’ way, waiting for a ship to take him the distance.

   

  You sprinted past the kiosk, feathered with fliers.  If you would’ve called a number, you might’ve lost weight.  One woman lost over fifty pounds by eating cardboard baked with milk.  You can buy a desk owned by a college student who spent nights on his balcony, head dancing to cannibis fumes.  You could’ve found a missing poodle and called her weepy owner – the one who’d hit him whenever he peed and who’d love him when she’d get home from work.  But for change and your hurry, you could’ve paid for a sultry, longing message, spoken by a middle-aged mother of four.  You could’ve consolidated your debts.

   

  But you were caught in a current of people, pounding tiles and pavement, watching the clock.  Time was just a reference point, loosely anchoring us to the same numbers; history, though broken in pieces, was something that all of us could share. 

   

  The sound of steam and cranking gears and the train was on its way.  And there you were in pursuit, swinging your briefcase, bright happy half-Windsor flapping dots in a coal-chemical wind.  Gathering speed, earning an unstoppable momentum, it wasn’t aware of your effort.  Windowed boxes were lined toward the horizon, towed by so many horses.  So, you tiptoed your way along the precipice, pumping your knees.  You leapt and caught the railing of the caboose, your left Florsheim tumbling to the tracks.  You tossed the other to be found together, an invisible gesture.

   

  They were standing in the aisle, people struggling with heavy or lopsided baggage.  You wound your way through a gauntlet of elbows and swinging hips – a little bit of human contact.  Around you, some were nodding to sleep or their eyes were fixed to the floor.

   

  Ahem.
  
  Outside, the moving landscape offered prosy images of a sprawling city: billboards for the fizz we drink, the machines we buy, the women we love.  Gaunt and mangy, a dog meandered happily in the warm wake of a locomotive.  He weaved in sloppy rhythms, smelling pastries wafting from the kitchen car.

  
  

  Shoeless, you bumped knees, looking for a plot of your own, fenced off by the breathing and thinking and hoping of the people around you.

   

  You committed yourself to aisle thirty-one and dark hair tucked behind her ears, she was humming the gospel, pretty with folded hands.  Your emphysema lungs had you coughing and she was nudged, learned eyes sweetly aware of movement. 

   

  Pardon me.

   

  —
  
  
  
  Hill Street (Day City) – Wayne Thiebaud
  
  —

   

  
  
  –
  
  The fuel for the sports fan is the ability to have private theories.
  (Jack Nicholson)
  
  Frisbeetarianism is the belief that when you die, your soul goes up on the roof and gets stuck.
  (George Carlin)
  
  –
  
  Supermodel

   

  What’s it like

  Being pretty.

   

  Now, granted

  There are stereotypes
  But really, men

  Are like women.

   

  They just

  Want

  To fall

      In love.

   

  You cry at the movies

  But beneath our bluster
  We’re crying too
    But for the supermodel.
  
  

  –
  
  The purpose of having ideologically segregated airlines is obvious. For the past few years we have been happily hiving ourselves off into self-congratulatory reinforcement groups. None of us should be forced to fly with the lying, cheating, vicious dirtballs who make up the other side.
  (David Brooks, “Fly the Partisan Skies“)
  
  –
  
  Listening to:
  
  
  continuous hit music
  
  –
  
  Today
  

  ! Matt11:28

  • 7:00 pm
  • 30 Comments