Tuesday, April 03, 2007

#345: April 3, 2007

A rainy night. The shadows on the streets
elongate in the flicker of the lamp's
moribund bulb. On subway grates the tramps
lie still as corpses in their winding sheets.

The guns in my front pockets chill my thighs.
I pull my collar up against the cold.
The city's dirty, impossibly old,
and plays with us, like wanton boys with flies.

I know that Death is waiting at the end
of this wet night, whether for me or else
some other slob whose luck ran out too soon.
But sometimes that Old Man smiles like a friend.
Sometimes I feel like buying what he sells.
And sometimes, that street light glows like the moon.

2 comments:

ThatGreenyFlower said...

Now, see, THIS is what the dork who wrote that book we hate (the one about the moon) was TRYING to do! Bravo! Bravo!

Scott said...

Thanks! Though I wasn't thinking of that book, I admit...in fact, I avoid thinking about that book whenever possible... :)

Editing note--I changed "fluorescent" to "moribund" in the third line, partly to bring more death imagery in, and partly b/c I realized that street light bulbs of the roundish sort I'm envisioning are quite probably NOT fluorescent. Hope that doesn't make it worse.