A phone call comes
It asks
“What has changed since last night?”
“Five, fresh new hours of sleep,” I say
For sure
I could say more, like
“Also that half hour of crying
And then again
But mostly trying
And failing
At two thirty at the dining table
In the sodium light
That comes through the window
And muddies the purple of the tablecloth.”
“You don’t sound too sunny.”
The phone call goes away
Not knowing half
How cloudy I am
Is my proudest accomplishment then this:
Atheism?
"There you god fearing fucks – you lose, I win!"
From the top of my cynic hill
I could shout down
From the top of my rising escalator
I could shout down
Shout them down
Show them
The morning has gone by
And I need a nap
Because I tire easily
Need my quicksand bed
To devour me
For I lay awake till four
Sparring with her snores, my thoughts
I slept then
and when I woke
I could not remember my dreams
Another call
“What do you want to do tonight?”
“Eat something, please.”
“Fine, Lebanese then!”
I am happy again.
This then is for me
A poem. My third
Of the kind written seriously
That makes it out in one piece
Begins honest, an oceanic memo maybe
Perceptive and impressive
But ends, ends up like this
Yes, sorry. I know.
Tuesday, October 03, 2006
Voyeurs
I am second in line at the window. My change is ready in my palm, but the teenage boy ahead is rummaging in his pockets. I wait, glance into the station. A train is pulling in. I watch as a crowd invents itself at the edge of the platform. I realize that I have begun to lift up my right leg, and gingerly bring it back down. It is not that I mean to kick the boy, but that I have a new pastime. When I am standing and I lift my right knee and then straighten out my leg, I hear a clicking sound. It really is an audible click and not just a sensation. It has happened every time since I hobbled in twenty-third in the three-mile last weekend. The click is not accompanied by pain – there is some of that as well, but only when I rest my weight on the leg – but this, this urge to click I am cannot fight. Yet, it is not as bad as plucking hair from one’s own nostril. I did that for a few weeks a few years ago. Trichotillomania they call it, and it causes less hurt than most would believe. Anyway. The game I play with my knee makes me feel like a pilot, about to land, anticipating the thud of an airplane’s wheels as they lower and lock into place. But there is no belly landing that the clicking of my injured knee will prevent. In fact, I must be making things worse, and every click is really one of protest.
I get my token and make it past the turnstiles and rush to catch the train that is still at the platform. It is repeatedly sounding its twin alarm as the doors close and then suddenly open again. It is like a child playing with the controls, annoying deliberately. I run but the knee hurts and I will not make it. The doors finally close and shut me out as I am almost there. I make a momentary expression of dejection, which dissolves into a meaningless combination of facial contortions. I look quickly down and away to avoid looking into the eyes of those inside. The train rattles noisily into the tunnel.
I make the next train easily enough and also get a place to sit. It is directly across one of the large panes of glass that are the coach’s windows. I am sandwiched in between a man and a woman whose faces, I know, I will not turn around to see. I have learned to become timid like everyone else in this city, which is big enough to have networks of subterranean transit tubes but not the rude way of life that naturally evolves within. My train is always full of sincere, polite faces that smile at their feet or at the mottled black floor of the train. I like to think I am the lone cynic under the city, defiant against miles of treacly tunnels.
The train is going as fast as it can. The noise is unbearable. Because I am not supposed to look at anyone I look at the pane of glass in front of my face. Actually, I am looking into it. Outside, speeding alongside the train, is my parallel world. It keeps pace effortlessly, and is populated by the same people - I and my silent travellers. But over there they are laid bare to observe and dissect. Their bodies are relentlessly slashed by the fluorescent lights that fly by in the tunnel. I no longer find that distracting. I see that the man on my left is middle-aged and reading a newspaper. His briefcase is on the floor between his legs. The girl on my right is looking into the window too, and I cannot be sure if she is looking at me. I continue my survey. My eyes linger lazily on all the women I see. I am on the other side of the glass and have no fear. A woman in her forties holds my gaze. She is sitting a few seats on my left. Her posture is very erect and I know that is why I continue to look at her. She must be tall too, because her legs make a neat right angle at her knees. She does not read, nor does she listen to music. She looks straight ahead. I move on.
I see myself and my survey comes to an end, like it does every morning. I know I have become a voyeur, but mostly it is I that I spy on. I inspect everyone, spending as much time as each deserves, but in the end I just look at myself looking back at me.
Today, my head is tilted a little to the left as it always is when I think I am looking straight ahead. It is morning and my hair is damp and has lost volume. I like it better like this than when it is dry and fluffy while returning home in the evening. I always place my bag on my lap and my palms over it, locking my fingers together. I look docile and accommodating. Even I, who know myself, would not be threatened by the appearances of this package. I do not at all look a worldly skeptic and I am disappointed every morning. I am like everyone else on this train, meek and private and full of hope. My face is thin and expressionless (I once smiled at myself). I know that in the evening on the way back I will rest against the side panel of the last seat and support my forehead on my palm, believing I am tired, and then play with my hair – like a French intellectual interviewed on a BBC documentary. But my hair is not long enough and even if it were, it is thick and would not fall with silky elegance.
I am distracted as the train brakes hard at the station before mine. The man in black jeans standing in front of me falls forward on to the sky-blue shirt of the man reading a paperback. This man is tall and the shorter man’s face is in his chest, his lips on the shirt pocket, placing a clumsy kiss aimed for the heart. He straightens up, and sees that he has left a tiny island of saliva on the blue shirt. Nothing is said. I look away before they realize I have seen. Then I become thin and extract myself from in between the man and the girl. I feel a stinging pain when I stand.
I get my token and make it past the turnstiles and rush to catch the train that is still at the platform. It is repeatedly sounding its twin alarm as the doors close and then suddenly open again. It is like a child playing with the controls, annoying deliberately. I run but the knee hurts and I will not make it. The doors finally close and shut me out as I am almost there. I make a momentary expression of dejection, which dissolves into a meaningless combination of facial contortions. I look quickly down and away to avoid looking into the eyes of those inside. The train rattles noisily into the tunnel.
I make the next train easily enough and also get a place to sit. It is directly across one of the large panes of glass that are the coach’s windows. I am sandwiched in between a man and a woman whose faces, I know, I will not turn around to see. I have learned to become timid like everyone else in this city, which is big enough to have networks of subterranean transit tubes but not the rude way of life that naturally evolves within. My train is always full of sincere, polite faces that smile at their feet or at the mottled black floor of the train. I like to think I am the lone cynic under the city, defiant against miles of treacly tunnels.
The train is going as fast as it can. The noise is unbearable. Because I am not supposed to look at anyone I look at the pane of glass in front of my face. Actually, I am looking into it. Outside, speeding alongside the train, is my parallel world. It keeps pace effortlessly, and is populated by the same people - I and my silent travellers. But over there they are laid bare to observe and dissect. Their bodies are relentlessly slashed by the fluorescent lights that fly by in the tunnel. I no longer find that distracting. I see that the man on my left is middle-aged and reading a newspaper. His briefcase is on the floor between his legs. The girl on my right is looking into the window too, and I cannot be sure if she is looking at me. I continue my survey. My eyes linger lazily on all the women I see. I am on the other side of the glass and have no fear. A woman in her forties holds my gaze. She is sitting a few seats on my left. Her posture is very erect and I know that is why I continue to look at her. She must be tall too, because her legs make a neat right angle at her knees. She does not read, nor does she listen to music. She looks straight ahead. I move on.
I see myself and my survey comes to an end, like it does every morning. I know I have become a voyeur, but mostly it is I that I spy on. I inspect everyone, spending as much time as each deserves, but in the end I just look at myself looking back at me.
Today, my head is tilted a little to the left as it always is when I think I am looking straight ahead. It is morning and my hair is damp and has lost volume. I like it better like this than when it is dry and fluffy while returning home in the evening. I always place my bag on my lap and my palms over it, locking my fingers together. I look docile and accommodating. Even I, who know myself, would not be threatened by the appearances of this package. I do not at all look a worldly skeptic and I am disappointed every morning. I am like everyone else on this train, meek and private and full of hope. My face is thin and expressionless (I once smiled at myself). I know that in the evening on the way back I will rest against the side panel of the last seat and support my forehead on my palm, believing I am tired, and then play with my hair – like a French intellectual interviewed on a BBC documentary. But my hair is not long enough and even if it were, it is thick and would not fall with silky elegance.
I am distracted as the train brakes hard at the station before mine. The man in black jeans standing in front of me falls forward on to the sky-blue shirt of the man reading a paperback. This man is tall and the shorter man’s face is in his chest, his lips on the shirt pocket, placing a clumsy kiss aimed for the heart. He straightens up, and sees that he has left a tiny island of saliva on the blue shirt. Nothing is said. I look away before they realize I have seen. Then I become thin and extract myself from in between the man and the girl. I feel a stinging pain when I stand.
Monday, October 02, 2006
Just random shit
This blog's opening promise
Is this
A story a week
Maybe a poem every other
Drawn mainly from a folder
Excitedly named Shorts two years ago
Last updated -- well, according to my hard disk --
"A year ago."
(Smug, perpetually whirring motherfucker).
A confession
The first few weeks will be a breeze
Some easy copypasting from stuff
Just random shit
I wrote and saved in Shorts
In Cambridge, for myself and a group of others
But that will dry up soon enough
And this post - my first in my first blog
Will
Push me and guilt me
to write more
Just random shit.
Be nice, this is the first
Or don't, this is the first.
Is this
A story a week
Maybe a poem every other
Drawn mainly from a folder
Excitedly named Shorts two years ago
Last updated -- well, according to my hard disk --
"A year ago."
(Smug, perpetually whirring motherfucker).
A confession
The first few weeks will be a breeze
Some easy copypasting from stuff
Just random shit
I wrote and saved in Shorts
In Cambridge, for myself and a group of others
But that will dry up soon enough
And this post - my first in my first blog
Will
Push me and guilt me
to write more
Just random shit.
Be nice, this is the first
Or don't, this is the first.
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