Monthly Archives: January 2017

Unreal

This rain?
is unreal. Which is ironic
because what I mean is it’s not
what I would choose.
I guess that’s why
they say that fate
weaves out a tale too strange
for us to guess, too awkward
to anticipate.

Fate. 
Yeah, you know that girl. She
checks you out down at the 
store, a cavernous market tall
line after line and you
wonder
How many weeks would it take?
If you only and I
were left here only she 
and I, left
to consume.  And how much waste
We’d birth by doing nothing, at
least not enough without the help
of all these lines
scanning down the signs
that label this and that and even
Her. 
Fate. 
Yeah, sometimes all I see’s that
name and I make some quick and
clever quip about Fate’s Checkout
Line, and it’s funny ’cause the
meaning’s just not plain. 
And other times
I see those hands and eyes that
strain for three then two then one
then me and I wonder how
Do I respond, react?
Apologize?  That what God
gave me people want, and I take
advantage of the fact?
No, no cash back today … and have
a nice … and thanks you too
And walk away. 
Out into the falling water as it 
Well, falls, down
on the wicked and the just
And I think that back in the day
They meant that in a “Good
For Everybody” kind of way, but now
it’s all a matter of your point 
of view because the same that’s making 
joy is bringing pain and even 
falling liquid falls up 
if the light is right like this
strobing blue, almost a soothing hue,
if not for where it is
where it isn’t supposed to be…
And fear, excitement, dread
for such a small thing:
a lonely silver switch flicked on,
a tiny motion like fingers pulling
on the strings of phosphor bronze 
and wood and bone and flesh
The slightest touch emits a stir
too big for words to wrap around,
expands to such a sound,
carving one by one the bits
laid down in ever smaller trails there
waiting to be read by a light
my eyes have never seen.  My ears
lean. in, oblivious to whose hands 
toiled or to whom those
bits belong.  Indifferent to
the billion$ thrown into the air
By choice or not
To force these ears to care. 
Remember fate?  I wonder when 
did we forget, the way she doles
the numbers out to potatoes and lattes
and laptop computers can’t tell us
what she’s worth can’t tell us
what we’re worth
It’s just an amplifier shouting ever 
louder down this long white hall
Is this the one you wanted
most to hear?
Now bend your ear 
for just a moment, dear
and listen to the sound of rain 
upon this flat steel roof and take
that as your proof that stranger
tales than we would choose 
to write are being spun 
wound round, and then undone
by her tireless hand
Barcode after barcode 
Up and over, down and in 
Around back out into the rain
like a child
thrown into this groaning dischord 
with only the comfort of a whisper
The soft, still song of the bits
As in her ear
The serenade holds back the tears
Holds back the fear
Holds back
An unreal kind of rain. 
Ironic because it is not what she would
choose.