Crick crack click clap snip snap on the concrete
The city is on the move and to stand would be
The slapstick comedy of stopping a treadmill.
Acceleration animation gravitation from the rotation
Apathetic friction that is devil-may-care like your heart
Dragged down on the gym floor and the sweaty men laugh.
Tick tock nonstop the clock hops and bops away the time
Of the day and eternity seems like a fairy tale
Because this era is neverneverland faith, we are young.
And getting younger, we plan to die naked as we came,
Lounging in retirement, the summer that knows no end.

But sighing the dying are crying relying upon our move
And we move past, this blur of momentum that the city has become,
Because stillness is for the hippies and the natives and we are neither.
Capitalistic colonial conquering captains of industry we charge
Credit or debit because it isn't ours anyways and the bank is moving.
Down the street in the heat can't beat the beat of the sweet treat
That the homeless remember the memory of the taste of mercy.
Like dogs in heat they pant and beg and we shake them off our pantleg
Because it is designer and the label buys manhood cheap and sells it high.

We split hit and quit and never commit because we spit words like blessing
Out when we wash our mouths out every night and every morning
Because it is the only way to get the taste out of your mouth when you wake up.
As if the jacket I wear can't clothe a man from the cold or sell for more
And my closet is lined with the clothes I don't remember to forget about wearing.
It is not hate that congregates or abates the rate the weight is pulling me down,
But fear of the immensity of impossibility colliding with reality inevitably,
Because one man's sacrifice will suffice to pay the price of my vice.

Yessir hearts are racing toward the first heart, we are collaborating.
That the dying need not remain the dead but know life to the fullest.
The poor and the sore need not abhor or war with the rush of the city.
Because saints and saviors are not just bedtime stories as long as my life
Has the power, no the will, no just the faith, all it needs is faith.
The sick have been tricked that their wick runs quick
Like crick crack click clack snip snap on the concrete
These hearts are moving this city on a hill.

It was back in…hell, must have been seventy-six?

Anyway, I was livin’ up around Bolton Landing

And doing some odd jobs (some very odd, indeed,

But that’s another story for another time)

At the Sagamore—big fancy hotel on Lake George—

When I started hearing people runnin’ their pie-holes

About this crazy-*** pigeon.  

Folks were saying the **** bird

Had somehow got ahold of the idea

That it was a ******* hawk or falcon,

Swooping down like it was after rabbits or field mice

Instead of bits of bread, and some of the old-timers

(Most likely addled by the years, or maybe having lived alone

For just a little too **** long)

Swore on the gravesof their dear sainted mothers

That they had seen it do full-out barrel rolls.



Well, little towns are all about big talk,

So naturally I wasn’t about to put much stock

In this particular rural legend—but one day

I’m walking around downtown,

And I see this chunky blue-gray blur tear-assing

Down around my pantleg for a bit before it leveled off

And started to climb, throwing in a couple of three-quarter turns

Just for ***** and giggles.



I saw that **** thing do its stunt flying

Several times after that:  loop-de-loops, death spirals

And a few more power dives, just to scare the women and children.

That old fool bird was pretty scuffed up and worse for wear

From its acrobatics—after all, it was just a pigeon

And it could daredevil from sunup to sundown,

But that didn’t mean it was likely to turn into no Blue Angel



The third, or maybe the fourth, time

I happened to catch the bird’s act

I caught a glimpse of its head, and I swear to you,

On all I hold true and holy, the bird was…grimacing,

Like it was just plain sick and tired of all the limitations

That nature had foisted off on fat, ungainly creatures like itself.  

Some days I would walk past the old McEachern place,

And I’d see that bird perched on an old, mostly-collapsed barn

Just staring at the cloud cover hiding Mount Marcy

(Where eagles lived in the crags,

Breathing the rarified air that pigeons,

Skimming the rooflines of strip malls, would never know.)



After a few months, folks stopped seeing the bird

And his wild-*** air show.  

Maybe it had been a bit slow

On the uptake while pulling out of a dive,

Or perhaps it finally came around to the notion

That a pigeon was, after all, just a pigeon, no more and no less.

Hell, maybe it set off for the High Peaks after all.

I’ve read that the ancients would read the entrails of birds

In order to tell the future, and maybe they could,

But in my book, ignoring the sweep and swoop of flight

And the mysteries of why-they-do-what

So you can ponder and mull over

The collection of bugs and gravel in its guts

Says about all I need to know about the notion of wisdom.

It was a new day,
As I suited up for battle,
A new campaign,
Something sure to leave the uninitiated rattled.

A polo shirt to defend against the piercing stares of haughty individuals,
A thermos of coffee,
To brain the sandman with when he arrived with reinforcements mid morning,
Neatly combed hair to camouflage myself as just another drone,
Plucking away and invisible to predators.

As I sit down at my desk
I take a look out the window at the rain,
And imagine I was out in it,
For the rain is much more enjoyable.

But fear not,
I still have my secret weapon,
Devastating to the enemies of fun.
A power so great it will ensure that I will never fully succumb to the forces of drudgery.


I raise my pantleg a bit to take a peek at my crazy socks,
Instantly making my day better