time's imaginary cut-throat manners

this one, with celery stalk fingers
some calamity that raises sighs
and buildings with shadows long as islands.

i keep thinking about dreams i didn't have.

and certainly, when you think of it
in the way you think of marching bands
or cross-country skiing
we can narrow down the feild of vision
to the point where only one instant
occurs of course on course
the way that maps lead us one place
and we're always going someplace else.

maps are only useful when we'd rather be someplace specific than anywhere else.

so, at times, i'm like a statue, carved
and molded by uncertain hands or fists clenched
with a fragile hierarchy to my life
and days, in the way that calendars keep count
long after you lose your mental balance
and sputter onwards anyway.

clocks count without us.

and everything becomes like a stern
tic-tocking instead of smooth unknown patterns
beneath sheets or bulges in shorts, uncasual
like we usually live, trying somehow
to keep records of our movements and ideas
that flutter at night beneath flickering street lights
reminding us of all the women everywhere
who move up and down streets in high heels, stilletos
waiting for john somebodyorother and hoping
one night will be better than the year
before it.

not that we're so very different

since we all waste hours on details
that account for themselves either way
in fashions ranging from classical to cyber-punk
(inside jokes and such) a turbulence
that comes across as havoc
but we can handle, like we've handled every other thing
(unmowed grass to unemployment lines) well enough
or else we wouldn't even be here.

time makes tragedies of us.

2004-07-15 | 9:44 a.m.
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