Though there are vacant seats I stand.
Must be the nostalgic straphanger in me.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
No "Poetry in Motion" here,
but I do spy
an eye grabbing poster.
A warning.
(Think Madrid)
A pair of alert, roving eyes
against a plain white backdrop,
nary a lip nor a nose.
In bold above- Bomb Detectors.
A young man sporting
a balaclava and a hoodie
'neath his coat boards.
(It’s 48 degrees: God Bless these Californians.)
He seats himself to the rear of the poster.
I watch his eyes dart about.
I glance at the poster,
then back at Boy Balaclava,
then back again...
a second man sits between he and the poster,
this guy with a facial pigment anomaly-
not sure if I’ve seen the like before;
like an inverted raccoon;
he's light chocolate with a
pinkish melanin absence about
the eyes, nose, mouth and hands.
Poor guy.
My camera is in my bag,
the three together
is interesting, arresting almost-
but I don’t have the stones for it.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Since I'm in a good mood,
(having played guitar
and sung the day's middle away
in a Cannery Row plaza
with Dash, a guy with an eye-patch,
a good booming voice, a friendly dog
and a talent for wry songwriting)
when I see the button and speaker
which allows one to communicate
with the conductor
I am oh-so tempted
to press it and say...
" I just wanted to thank you-
the ride is smooth,
everyone appears to be
content and secure.
No terror here, Captain!
No sir, we're a chipper crew!"
* * * * * * * * * * * * * *
On the el section now
(West Oakland)
a tube of lip moisturizer’s
been left behind,
it's rolling around
in a vacant seat
near the door.
Almost dapper,
a trench-coated black man enters
singing Willie Nelson sotto voce,
“ To all the girls I’ve loved before…”
spots the lolling, left-behind object,
leans over to investigate,
is fingering the tube
when I elevate my eyebrows
and say in a hyperbole of disbelief,
“Used Chapstick? Daaay-um!”
We both smile.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
I am looking now
at the container cranes
which line the East Bay shore.
Stark, strange, white girders
startling against the grayblue setting sky.
Ingenuity unleashed.
The machinations of man
gird the world.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Nearly twenty years ago
I was on a Manhattan bound LIRR,
hurtling through the borough of Queens
with my brother and nephew.
The tyke's brilliant locks
were something to behold.
Pull a ringlet, let it go
and it would recoil
into it's most perfect
corkscrew pig-tail, anew.
Out the window,
whizzing by in a sprawling
cacaphony of color are-
junkyards, alleys, avenues,
women, kids, buildings,
streetlights, men, storefronts,
garbage, graffitti, cars, flags,
trucks, lamposts, fire hydrants...
Desiring he should,
in a Whitman-like list,
name what he saw
I innocently asked-
" What do you see?"
He seemed puzzled,
" I see all things."
* * * * * * * * * * *
I've kept her waiting,
my friend's curbside,
listening to Cesaria Evora
in her warm Honda.
I hasten guiltily toward it
wanting to jot a note or three.
As I fussily extract pen and paper,
some aged detritus from my
heavy coat's deep pockets
is liberated...
it flutters earthward,
resembling,
oddly enough,
uncooked oatmeal.
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