I hadn't meant to spy on them; just one of my evening walks along the beach.  Moonlight gleaming on wet teenage backs.  Horseplay crackling in their young male voices-- “King of the Hill” from a rusty life guard chair.  I like these memories, the ones that just occur-- when everything is there again....

Coming to find myself again in October.  Long trudge to the “Shanty Village” gets me thinking about the wrinkled hand that first took me close to the ageless roar and seething.  Skirted bathing suit, indelible tremble of voice-- the woman bringing me beyond the fear that had watched all day from those cautious castles, after being so rudely trounced!   She helped me make my peace with what I could neither own nor tame— the sea and me.  We walked along the channel then, watching slender fishes in their school-- that even fish would go to school!  We had to laugh.  Scorching the soles of my feet in the parking lot!  Oo-ah-oo-ah! Forgot my flip-flops!
_

October now, piling sand along the roadside....  First kiss at Cooks Brook Beach.  Surf breaking over this jetty, could have been my heart.  I think his name was Stan....

How can people leave their flowers still blooming in window boxes?  In the cottage quiet, I can almost picture... bicycles leaning by dripping shower stalls.  Beach umbrellas, the smell of suntan lotion,  kids roving in barefoot bands....  Fall packs them all away.

While cold advances on the struggling song of crickets, a man, wearing a painter's hat and whistling, does the unthinkable-- hammers plywood over his shanty's windows.  I think that summer people can close their eyes.  We, of October, have vivid memories-- savoring sources that linger in their endings.  Coming late—staying long beyond the leaving-- sleeping warm in winter sands.

My Doppelganger holds secret negotiations with my Avatar.
Slicing up the available territory by flipping a coin. Apparently,

I can see a me for myself if I happen to be in Somalia next Monday.
But that’s the Avator talking. Doppelganger is betting on Seattle.

I am eavesdropping, sitting around in my underwear. They
think I am unaware because I can’t see them, but they are
impossible without me.

Goethe, Shelley and John Donne are in the next apartment
huddled over some broken poems each had written on
the mirrors. No mistakes were made. No reflections.

They get to see themselves out of the corner of one eye,
for up to nine seconds which is like a lifetime to remember.

Yet the acrid smell of Neitzsche emanates from dark corners.
Sturm und Drang be ******; Neitzsche is convinced
no one has ever looked like him, but he does suggest
a parallel universe.

Abe Lincoln, a latecomer and unlikely participant, picks up a few pointers.
He knows full well that what he saw was not a reflection. And he rode that train
all the way from Pittsburg. All those windows...

And, yes, KA, the spirit double, the Egyptian Goddess, goes in **** as the
Greek Princess and shows up as Helen to tease Paris of Troy.

How can you not believe that? For Goddess sake, she helped end the Trojan War.

I have a lot of time on my hands. I don’t get out much.
Ava and Dopp came by just to let me know I’m still around.

The night is far along,
so where the hell are you?
was there something more
important,
you simply had to do?

Is your phone not working?
perhaps you couldn't find a
pen;
something else that mattered?
did you stop to see a friend?

Are there secrets now between us?
must you hide some things from me?
love doesn't harbor secrets,
it must be true and free.

I don't worry anymore love,
you can always find your way;
but the hour's late for loving,
way too late for play.


I will wait a little longer,
but after then, I'll seek my rest;
I'll leave the light on for you,
like I would for any guest.

as sure as every morn when the rays wade into the nights receding
the traffic lanes build up closely
and from all streams one  by one they crawl
on their four round wheels into spidery webs of white lines
heading to the city where their lives have become entangled
by the frailties of living.

Little kids crying and scrubbing butter on test testing
patience and time and reluctance to head to school
that boring daily task of learning little
from tired teachers, working towards an overcrowded
weekend mauled by paper tigers and red tick marks.

I too, join the spilling  web towards city
where scholars who know everything that
should be known from the wider world
invade the cafeteria with frizzy coke and custard pies
and armed with massive heavy books saunter
off to numbered classrooms and halls
to get educated. I dread the latecomer
who looks askance at me and with disdain
when I question punctuality.

The day unfolds as we weave in and out
of technological wonders, bringing sense
to  the complex throb of learning that entraps us.

I race home at 3, checking my phone for all
the days signposts of my location and living.

Author Notes

Optional
© Marshall Gass. All rights reserved, 3 days ago

- See more at: http://allpoetry.com/poem/11594853-rush-hour-by-Marshall-Gass#sthash.itJTgZiN.dpuf

Freedom only exists
When everyone is free.
It cannot be called freedom
If it only refers to me.

I have watched people lie
And say all men are equal,
And ignore that they believed
It didn't refer to black people

Or gays, or Jews or Latinos
Based on centuries of shame.
When we start to fix all that
Bigots see it’s not a game.

It’s time we humans grow up
And stop acting the heathen.
There is no word more loving
Than that one word, freedom.

We’re a different sort of people
Than we were living in caves.
We need to rely on more than
A sign that says “Jesus Saves.”

We suffer from maladies now
That have been here all along,
To think a latecomer ideology
Can fix things is just wrong.

We need to focus on how we
As humans have make errors
And agree to stop doing them
And become the standard bearers.

Freedom only exists
When everyone is free.
It cannot be called freedom
If it only refers to me.

My father,
the man
who invented time.
My father,
the latecomer.
Life is like that.

the days are different
consistently inconsistent
discouragement encouraged
hating the waiting
wading in uncertainty
grandiose plans
what is this rate of success?
latecomer
shooting for the moon
still too of earth
trying to transcend
when

Tedious and tiring.  Arrayed before me like a king’s court, books open, but eyes on me.  ******* on the **** of my wisdom, absorbing little.  A lazy October sun peeks through the windows, highlighting the auburn hair of the girl in the front row...the one who sits, legs slyly parted, hoping I will notice her lace ******* and...
But no, I am sated and cannot rise to interest for her.  Silly thing, thinking her ****** and obvious try at seduction will rouse me. Yes, she is a pretty specimen, but I have a garden of such flowers. Wilted roses that give me no more pleasure.
Soon the bell will ring and these pathetic creatures will pour out the door and I will wait for the next herd, bored by their very existence.  I feel like a cowherd readying to lead the bored and boring cattle to sentient awareness, dim though it may be.  

I do not bother to look up.  There is no need - they are all the same.  I begin to lecture when there is an interruption.  Can these creatures not get to class on time?
Hoping to berate the latecomer, to vent my squirming spleen and make the day less cloying...  She is there...this new student.  This rose who must be in my garden of perfection.  Breath leaves my lungs and I am struck dumb.  I, who am strong and stalwart...a prime alpha male am rendered a stuttering child.
Her name - Rose McClellan.  My Rose.  She hands me her class card and chooses a desk far in the back.  My heart is beating loudly, my hands have a sheen of sweat.  Nothing about this day is ordinary now.

..and so.
I told them that I stuck a pen in Spiro and they thought that I meant the former vice president when I actually meant the graph thing that produced hypotrochoids although to me they were just patterns.

well
when you tell some that the Sun will eventually burn out
and life as we know it will die out they'll look to the state for a handout and that as we know will never happen or 'appen it will when pigs fly.

Grateful that the weekend is approaching
this week has really done my head in,
I have a need to recuperate,
cancel that and write inebriate
because
early summer is a latecomer
and I'm really fed up with the waiting
someone should get the drinks in
and that someone is probably me.