4 o'clock, saturday
Dread and Panic are holding hands in my chest:
An extraordinary case of the mean reds
watching the gray
from my kitchen window
the cars parked over cement fields
precisely 300 vehicles when full
the boy sitting on a gray bench waiting
with his baseball, shh! His gray father is shouting
at his gray phone, his gray wife finally called that number.
all gray.
the sky here is almost always sleeping
a blanket of melting nimbus
the gulls slide inoffensively over the roofs
our courtyard grass trembles for them
the wind falls out of the bay
wind, the world traveler without a suitcase
I imagine it kicking up dust in exotic fields
only the rocks are gray there,
gray because they deserve to be.
the whole scene is quite extraordinary
A Run Of Wild Horses! Gall-lop-ing
gliding offensively, red and white and gold
shining sweaty and flying!
can you imagine?
--it's starting to rain and the boy is still sitting,
he's so gray now I can hardly see him
the wind still spills in from the bay down the road
where I can see them running from my window-
Mains whipping like flags of furious change
Hooves beating down the cement footpaths
The streetlamps are crumpling into heaps of flowers
Tails raging back and forth, metronomous passion chords
Fast, rapid gaining (Lover's Heartbeat)
-the boy is yet unaware
legs of inspiration fast approaching
-the cars twist into red willows over golden hope fields
Shh! His father, master of gray has been sacked! Tr-am-pled!
Now his body of flowers lay in the street!
Arrest. They have arrested.
Standing tall and silent like Liberty
they take the boy upon their shoulders,
an acrobatic wonder
and continue slowly across the grass
-it still trembles for them
and take flight, to the next courtyard
and then the next.
I'll never forget the grayness of his eyes
as he disappeared over the trees
who were once chimneys,
his mouth was stuffed
full of flowers.