On Line 9
When hurling down with
The last train
The iron tracks screaming
And ghosts standing alert
You’re not exactly dead yet
But not
Exactly alive
Anymore
That moment in between
When you don’t
Have to think
Whether you’re
Dead or alive
Is comfortable
Enough
Somehow
You wish
It’d never end
Tag Archives: Loneliness
Black Magic Woman
There I was
Drinking on the bench
Minding my own
When this black woman
Rather young if not pretty
Comes and talks to me.
Her hands are
Tattooed all over
Up to the wrists,
Not her face
Body I don’t know
Just the hands
Tattooed like a beautiful
Work of art.
“Why just the hands,” I ask.
“I was at a wedding,” she says
As if that would explain everything,
“But it ain’t gonna last.”
“Nothing lasts,” I say.
She laughs
Shows me her hands
Let me touch them
And I can imagine those hands
All over me
Understanding
Not judgemental
Soothing.
Then she has to go
Of course.
I look at my bench
Someone had carved a heart
In the wood.
Old story I guess.
Keeping honest
I drink beer, a lot of beer
And lots of beer on funky nights
In the morning, my beer shit
It’s Hiroshima and Nagasaki
With all due respect
To Sake and Lemon Sun.
People offer me wine
Or spirits
I usually stick to beer
I explain that with beer
I never lose control
No blanks
Where you wake up
Somewhere
Not knowing
How you got there
With beer I always
Find a way home.
But that’s not why
I like beer
I like its bitter taste
It reminds me
Of myself when I was a
Poor young fuck
In poor part of town
And beer, bad beer but lots of it,
Was the key to elsewhere.
It still works though
When on my bench, drinking
Still poor
Still looking
For elsewhere
Band aid
Line 9
In the crowd
This Asian woman
Young
Safety pins
In her ears
The nurse kind
I think
And I wish
Bag Lady
The day is over on Line 9
This woman bum
With all her bags
Is going to spend
The night
On the platform
It’s cold but
She’s home sort of
So she’s getting comfortable
And finally
Takes her shoes off.
That feels good
Working girl
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