waiting weightless
waitless
1/18/15
8:43am

' hand rest chest
thumpthump
thump ''

' that heartbeat is a
metronome of waxing and waning
rhythmic tides and it's an '
everchanging time signature
to my overture overture and '
hand off and unsettle and '
thrown into uncontrolled rubato~ ''

' fizzy brain
spinnin dizzy
spinnin circles
spiral spiral ''

' life over my shoulder
strapped to my back and
I'm flowing like a river
down the elevator ''

' opening down
the seam and out ''
I step and roll heel toe
heel toe '
eyes flick side and side
glass door push open and
box and glass door push open and
push open push open and
open... ''

' cold streets are
the downbeat to sleet '' — '

it's frozen roads going backwards
and I'm going backwards with all my lackwords ''

...slushroadslick. '

I'm returning and leaving
like a medicine wheel spinning
and there's a dead grackle soaking
next to the curb slippery
with toxic runoff... '

...crystal water
melting '

my shoes slide from left
to left and I've up and left and
I'm climbing down the
right side of a staircase
and it's a case and it's a way
that stairway

and that last step
is 9:13am last step flat
and platform dead and
sleepy benches waiting for
the listless waiting
for the waitless ''

' waiting , waiting ''
I hop on and hide... '

the silence is sacred ''
the eyes are averted
and it's one of the
thousand different silences '
it's one of the rumbling ones
but then it's broken and
it's broken by an angry one '
and we're all alone in a railcar
with seven others, we're all alone
and she breaks it, ' she breaks it by
spilling angry nothings into the phone
that she pushes tightly to her skull '
and she grips it and she breaks it and '
and she breaks it and '
I hop off and run...

and once again I'm a
thousand different faces waiting '
but right now we're two
watching watching the
hopping sparrow ' and
it is so alive with it's
warm fluffy feathers
soaked with life ''
'

and everyone is shuffle shuffle pacing ''
' but every body stands still with eyes saccading...
sweep sweep, '

stay where you are,
in your lateness ''
and your action
is in your inaction
weightless... '

waiting to
hop on

It’s all ******* bits and pieces this existence of ours while we ride this ever spinning crazy world we inhabit, that’s just the thing, even if we are complete ******* it just keeps on rolling through the cosmic plane, the penny you left on the train tracks derails the railcar full of medical supplies for sick dyeing orphans, you wipe your genitalia on the boss’s keyboard knowing that in time his face will smell like *****, unloading your loneliness with displacement on the little blue hair taking too long to count change at the grocery check out.

It  doesn’t matter, none of it ever matters, the world’s not going to stop, not even going to slow and pause for breath, and nobody cares about your problems. But sometimes you find someone, someone so incredible special, someone who seems to understand, someone who really gets you, and for a little while its better, we can lie there in the dark and promise never to leave each other, we have someone to hold onto, someone who proves we exist, at least for a little while anyway.

It’s how you interconnect these bits and pieces, these singular moments into the mosaic of your reality.

I am offset;

an old railcar piled with pages,
shunted forward a few
inches every Saturday or so.

my mouth fell off on crooked tracks,
now I speak through rust-

corrosion carries all the stories never told,

a burnt patina
imploring passengers to pore through
its contents
till their hands are herringboned with paper-cuts.

it always ends in locked jaws-
with tetanus in their blood.

Darkness now covers
Where  lightness has been
This train has derailed
I’m stuck once again

With worry and fear
No wisdom within
A prisoner in this railcar
The walls closing in

With judgement of self
Leading the way
Punitive pain
Leads her astray

The damage extensive
She may not be saved
Demons encompass
Her mind Enslaved

A window of hope
If only she could see
Love is waiting
To set her free

This is a portrait of backs turned.

It's inspired by windows  
   on a railcar
passing an anywhere town
where turned backs
   the shape of faraway kites
move farthest on windy days.

This is the wall

where a portrait of backs turned
could have been framed,
   captioned
by the silhouettes of parting words
left in eraser dust.

These are the overcoats left
   hanging
on the backs of empty bar chairs.

We sat on the precipice of a deep
   conversation.
Your face was a blur.

You should’ve spoken up
When you talked down to me
Instead you split my soul
Spitting endless inbetweens
And now the spool spins heavy,
Wiry untouched runaway dreams
Where the railcar always passes
Just a moment out of reach

(On a railcar siding outside Oswiecim, Poland 12/11/1943)



Our captors did not care that we had nothing left to eat,
No blankets or warm clothing locked in this boxcar with no heat.
My old father’s face was turning grey; his hands and cheeks felt numb.
He needed somehow to get warm or else he would succumb.

Everything we had, they had taken from us, for we were “Untermenschen”.
Our tabernacles are overthrown; A disarmed people couldn't prevent them.
We had no great illusions of what our fate would be:
We would be starved and worked to death for ******’s Germany.

Something in my soul cried out; I cannot reason why.
Somehow I was determined that my father must not die.
I set about to warm him; I massaged his hands and feet.
To keep his life’s blood flowing I knew I must not sleep.

Grey morning dawned; still bitter cold, as sharp as any knife.
Our companions had all froze to death, each yielding up their life
Only we two survived the night to see another dawn.
With some envy, we surveyed our friends who now were dead and gone


Somehow I survived the camps until the Russians came.
Out of all my family, I, alone, remained.
In time I immigrated to this land, a place considered free.
Be vigilant, my children; beware repeating history.

(for purpose of this poem
pronounce last word uh gain).

The missus uttered
aforementioned phrase
as she pulled a clump of my hair
from out the clogged shower drain
for no rhyme nor reason lemme explain
how so many globs of these strands
linkedin to scalp courtesy hair follicle,
which hair follicle essentially
a tube-like structure (pore)
that surrounds the root
and strand of a hair.

Hair follicles exist
in the top two layers of skin.

The average individual
born with over five million hair follicles
in their body and over
one million hair follicles
on his/her head, and as I aged
about that many seem to
get loosed when washing then rinsing hair,
nevertheless more hair continues
to grow out of hair follicles
smaller in size than sand grain.

I surmise that if laid end to end
each hapless hair that got plucked
out me noggin since birth
would fill many a railroad car,
(extending from Schwenksville,
Pennsylvania to Ukraine)
railcar (American and Canadian English),
railway wagon, railway carriage,
railway truck, railwagon, rail carriage
or railtruck (British English and UIC),
also called a train car, train wagon,
train carriage or train truck;
a vehicle used for the carrying
of cargo or passengers on a rail transport.

Said locomotive boxcars full to the brim
with globs of hair (mine)
after lathering locks
(each filament evincing
fifty shades of gray fibrous)
composed of 95% keratin,
a fibrous and helical protein
(in the shape of a helix),
which also comprises
composition of the skin
and of all the phanera (hair, nails, etc.).

Synthesized by keratinocytes,
keratin insoluble in water,
thus ensuring waterproofing
and protection for hair.