At this point I know it's over
They've told us where the plane is heading
I've always thought I'd know what to think if something like this happened
But I'm lost here
I'm not thinking about my beautiful wife
Or my daughter
My parents who will outlive me
Or my friends who are off living their lives

I keep thinking about the mailman
No really I do
How he'll have to go around tomorrow
Passing this tale of tragedy
Gracing my family with statistics
Thousands dead thousands hurt
I feel bad for that mailman
For he will never truly understand the pain he will bring

This mailman does not know my name
He does not know my wife, my daughter,
The man next to me,
My first grade teacher, my first girlfriend
He does not know my dog
He does not know my true dreams or my hopes
My ambitions, my musings, my innermost thoughts
No this mailman only knows he is passing out the paper

Delivering news to millions who do not want it

I watched the mailman go by again.
He's always at it, delivering mail.
It reminded me how the days pass by and
how theres always Thursdays.
The mailman goes by day after day,
shoving mail into box after box.
I watch him.
I watch his technique.
He doesn't know I'm watching,
but then slowly people trickle out of their houses.
To open the previously closed box
and open the previously sealed letter.
One letter may be special.
So lets be thankful for this doorless truck and its driver.
But really its all about the driver
The mailman.

Either peace or happiness,
let it enfold you

when I was a young man
I felt these things were
dumb, unsophisticated.
I had bad blood, a twisted
mind, a precarious
upbringing.

I was hard as granite, I
leered at the
sun.
I trusted no man and
especially no
woman.

I was living a hell in
small rooms, I broke
things, smashed things,
walked through glass,
cursed.
I challenged everything,
was continually being
evicted, jailed, in and
out of fights, in and out
of my mind.
women were something
to ***** and rail
at, I had no male
friends,

I changed jobs and
cities, I hated holidays,
babies, history,
newspapers, museums,
grandmothers,
marriage, movies,
spiders, garbagemen,
english accents,spain,
france,italy,walnuts and
the color
orange.
algebra angred me,
opera sickened me,
charlie chaplin was a
fake
and flowers were for
pansies.

peace and happiness to me
were signs of
inferiority,
tenants of the weak
and
addled
mind.

but as I went on with
my alley fights,
my suicidal years,
my passage through
any number of
women-it gradually
began to occur to
me
that I wasn't different

from the
others, I was the same,

they were all fulsome
with hatred,
glossed over with petty
grievances,
the men I fought in
alleys had hearts of stone.
everybody was nudging,
inching, cheating for
some insignificant
advantage,
the lie was the
weapon and the
plot was
empty,
darkness was the
dictator.

cautiously, I allowed
myself to feel good
at times.
I found moments of
peace in cheap
rooms
just staring at the
knobs of some
dresser
or listening to the
rain in the
dark.
the less I needed
the better I
felt.

maybe the other life had worn me
down.
I no longer found
glamour
in topping somebody
in conversation.
or in mounting the
body of some poor
drunken female
whose life had
slipped away into
sorrow.

I could never accept
life as it was,
i could never gobble
down all its
poisons
but there were parts,
tenuous magic parts
open for the
asking.

I re formulated
I don't know when,
date, time, all
that
but the change
occurred.
something in me
relaxed, smoothed
out.
i no longer had to
prove that I was a
man,

I didn't have to prove
anything.

I began to see things:
coffee cups lined up
behind a counter in a
cafe.
or a dog walking along
a sidewalk.
or the way the mouse
on my dresser top
stopped there
with its body,
its ears,
its nose,
it was fixed,
a bit of life
caught within itself
and its eyes looked
at me
and they were
beautiful.
then- it was
gone.

I began to feel good,
I began to feel good
in the worst situations
and there were plenty
of those.
like say, the boss
behind his desk,
he is going to have
to fire me.

I've missed too many
days.
he is dressed in a
suit, necktie, glasses,
he says, 'I am going
to have to let you go'

'it's all right' I tell
him.

He must do what he
must do, he has a
wife, a house, children,
expenses, most probably
a girlfriend.

I am sorry for him
he is caught.

I walk onto the blazing
sunshine.
the whole day is
mine
temporarily,
anyhow.

(the whole world is at the
throat of the world,
everybody feels angry,
short-changed, cheated,
everybody is despondent,
disillusioned)

I welcomed shots of
peace, tattered shards of
happiness.

I embraced that stuff
like the hottest number,
like high heels, *******,
singing,the
works.

(don't get me wrong,
there is such a thing as cockeyed optimism
that overlooks all
basic problems just for
the sake of
itself-
this is a shield and a
sickness.)

The knife got near my
throat again,
I almost turned on the
gas
again
but when the good
moments arrived
again
I didn't fight them off
like an alley
adversary.
I let them take me,
I luxuriated in them,
I made them welcome
home.
I even looked into
the mirror
once having thought
myself to be
ugly,
I now liked what
I saw, almost
handsome, yes,
a bit ripped and
ragged,
scares, lumps,
odd turns,
but all in all,
not too bad,
almost handsome,
better at least than
some of those movie
star faces
like the cheeks of
a baby's
****.

and finally I discovered
real feelings of
others,
unheralded,
like lately,
like this morning,
as I was leaving,
for the track,
i saw my wife in bed,
just the
shape of
her head there
(not forgetting
centuries of the living
and the dead and
the dying,
the pyramids,
Mozart dead
but his music still
there in the
room, weeds growing,
the earth turning,
the tote board waiting for
me)
I saw the shape of my
wife's head,
she so still,
I ached for her life,
just being there
under the
covers.

I kissed her in the
forehead,
got down the stairway,
got outside,
got into my marvelous
car,
fixed the seatbelt,
backed out the
drive.
feeling warm to
the fingertips,
down to my
foot on the gas
pedal,
I entered the world
once
more,
drove down the
hill
past the houses
full and empty
of
people,
I saw the mailman,
honked,
he waved
back
at me.

I made friends with the mailman today.
Because I thought he'd care to know
I'll be gone soon, he won't have to come around for much longer.
He smiled at me, with a hint of uncertainty
and carried on with his daily routine.

My mailman should be burnt at the steak
Too often do I run into him during his daily
affairs with the same demented smile on his calloused visage
What does he know?
What does he possess that I lack?
I'm beggening to think that
he's reading my letters
Here's to you, ******.

Blue was the sky
Blue was the sky
The sky was so blue
I wanted to cry

But I kept my chin up
My feet to the road
Acting like someone
With nowhere go

Stones and dust
Stones and dust
Walking past cars
Covered in rust

I'm feeling fine
As I watch a cat stretch
I can't think of a day
Better than this

The girls and the boys
The girls and the boys
Skipping and yelling
Playing with toys

A black cloud came out
And it started to rain
Puddles and pavement
Thirsty storm drain

Gray was the sky
Gray was the sky
The sky was so gray
I wanted to cry

But brown grass turned green
Flowers could drink
And everything dripping
Started to gleam

Letters and kisses
Letters and kisses
A mailman got tired
And sat for a minute

Faster smoother communication
Texts flying freely in the air
But somewhere eerily dying the relation
Bred when you could just silently stare!
Gone are the years of shy look and snail mail
A distance of time-space that fanned it intense
The words though now are buzzing like gale
With the wind comes not the romance’s incense!
Flew away the time them now would never know
Of waiting in hushed noon for the mailman’s bell
Running the fingers in the warmth of a blue glow
With the lovelorn heart in pursuit of a fairytale!

Faster smoother communication
Texts flying freely in the air
But somewhere eerily dying the relation
Bred when you could just silently stare!
Gone are the years of shy look and snail mail
A distance of time-space that fanned it intense
The words though now are buzzing like gale
With the wind comes not the romance’s incense!
Flew away the time them now would never know
Of waiting in hushed noon for the mailman’s bell
Running the fingers in the warmth of a blue glow
With the lovelorn heart in pursuit of a fairytale!

I hope you cancel me,
I’m sick of you
and most everyone else.
They talk
too **** much.
Except for the mailman,
who comes
to my apartment building
everyday.
He puts every letter
in every right box.
He has made other mistakes
in this life,
but has never put a letter
in the wrong box.
And some of the letters
are regretful,
love letters
that in 2 years
will find themselves
in the fireplace.
Maybe a birthday card
from Buddy,
which will be kept forever
because it is the last one
you ever got from him.
The best letter I got
was from the queen
of Cap Hill,
and there were
no words written on it.
Blank piece of paper,
I wrote a poem on it
and threw it away.
I’ve seen the mailman everyday
for 28 years,
and he never says a word.