always woke up with nothing to say to her
not a thing.

we slept in rooms separate,
but she would bust in on me,
occasionally, to have an occasion,
never knocking, just door pounding,
just to annoy, just to see
if I still cared, hoping to revoke
what passed for pseudo-serenity.

some times entireties
would pass
before you had the energies
to swing
your legs over the
side of the day~bed,
conceding, white flag surrendering,
losing the commencing-avoidance of
the start-of-the-day battle of
pseudo-existence.

hoping against hope
you don't meet,
hoping against hope
she doesn't say accidentally,
good morning.

so you don't have to
Lincoln~Douglas debate,
aerate, concentrate, orate,
how to answer without bitterness
intended to maim.

knowing you could not e'er possess
a good morning, day, night,
by definition, by ruling of the
gods in charge of never.

sometimes you made it out
of the apartment that had
no ingress,
only egress,
happy happy no converse.

used to go to a Barnes & Noble,
get a refillable endless Starbucks,
from open to closing.
read all day, sitting with strangers,
till my **** hurt so bad,
didn't think I could walk again.

now and then,
smiled at the ladies,
tho nothing could come of it,
nothing ever did.

she never asked me
where I egressed too.
didn't care, that was better
for sanitizing my pseudo-sanity.

came home cautiously,
door opening silently
in case I was home prematurely,
she still there.

sometimes you wake up with nothing to say
to yourself.
that is even worse,
cause the meaning clear,
breaking point is near.

have a picture of me from those days.
a cellphone photo I took myself,
of course.
serious, bearded, short haired,
red eyed, unfiltered.

Sometimes I think I will banner it,
so you can tap into a part of me
that words just cannot do injustice to,
more than was already done.

here, while composing,
I fell asleep.
tired?

maybe.  maybe,
sometimes you just don't want to remember.

Mr. Condiment Man

he arrives around 10:30am,
after the morning rushers and multiple malingerers
have surrendered to the clocker's red glare stare,
the little dictator of time that rules lands far and wide,
and the lunch crush is but a restauranteur's faraway dream

most days, to the last counter stool, he beelines,
the most least desirable seat in all of diner-land,
adjacent to the noise of kitchen,
and its associated higher risks perilous,
a two way swinging door "entera-ance,"
a residency to be avoided most studiously

though hardly a corner for one to go unnoticed,
by virtue of its iffy existence,
unless one likes the increased chance of
being a  victim of a crashing accident,
Mr. Condiment Man goes in and out, silently unremarked
but very noticed

in our land of spacious skies and amber waves of plastic,
customarily any "regular" is happily accorded a
rousing Sousa welcome, but that mistake now twice made,
is a historical hurry up-to-be-please-be-forgotten incident,
and the Condiment Man's cloaking invisibility second only to the
NYC's Famous Actors seeking breakfast amidst the common people

no words are passed, no pleasantries are planted,
the rule of incommunicado silence, for both sides now,
most happily observed, like a UN peacekeeping boundary

quick appears Cream of Tomato soup accompanied by
ever multiplying handfuls of packages of Nabisco
crackered packets, freshly fracked, with a ketchup Heinz handy,
a soupçon of five iodized salt shakes in the soup then interred,
salt released from the prototypical glass shaker whose universality usage seems to be a Federal law o' the land

the meal in silence arrives,
silently but oh-so-slowly-consumed,
it's extenuating circumstances lengthily enhanced by intermittent deliveries of additional cracking crackers,
and an occasional lip smacking,
and an unrequited unrequested unremarked
  "topping off" soup refillament,
this one act play presented daily
with a free tall glass of water in red plastic also refillable,
as needed

a play with no official ending,
no white topped, green lined, ripped from the ubiquitous diner pad, scribbled, billing ever presented,
but the loose change precisely, scrupulously counted then
upon the counter left, materializes by the hands
of the unacclaimed Mr.  Condiment Man,
which he sources from pockets various
in places where no pocket rightfully  belongs

you can set you watch by his timed departure
at five minutes of Twelve, he is no longer,
the play thus ended, the audience to feet leaps,
relieved and appreciative of the quiet man's drama
and his most excellent silent soliloquy

some strange human need satisfied and pleased
for all parties concerned, when the New York Times
revealed that this C.C. man left a 50 million dollar estate donated
to Meals-on-Wheels,
a fortune amassed by speculation in
condo's (ha!),

there was no shocked groaning,
only some perfunctory observing that frugality has its place,
and that this fantastick show, now closed, would be
sorely missed, for it had become a
condiment itself
a spice in the lives of so many


~
O.G.D.N.