Sep 07
Car Sense
Dings, chirps, chimes and gongs
Greet you as the car starts.
Flit, flicker and flash
Go lights before your eyes.
Engine vibrrrato
Feeling pedal and wheel.
Senses attuned…you drive.
Archive for the 'Poetry & Prose' Category
Jul 04
The Waiting Room
Colorful wallpaper borders cannot brighten the waiting room.
Sterile and impersonal, hospitals are inhospitable…inhuman.
Volunteers dictate directions over and over
About cell phones, smoking areas, and free coffee.
Sitting stoically alone, or in familial enclaves
Tired faces gaze blindly at a television,
Newspapers, or each other…all waiting…waiting.
The atmosphere is wearying.
They wait. Wondering when word will come.
When a Doctor, spoken to maybe once or twice,
Will be ushered before them, surgical mask pulled below the chin,
Stethoscope around the neck, obligatory white coat…
Waiting for the pronouncement, a benediction, relief.
Waiting to hear that “everything went very well.”
—
METAPHYSICS
What is it to be Rational?
To be Logical? To be Reasonable?
To be Human?
Rationality is an illusion, a sophist straitjacket
Logic is a myth, a fable, a fairy tale.
And Reason, Pure Reason!
Critique until convinced we can know anything.
Maybe Socrates knew. That is why he drank Hemlock.
The Truth?
We are Desire.
Pure Appetite.
Let us critique that!
Know it. Accept it.
All else is metaphysical masturbation.
1/4/2007
—-
Way of the Rodent?
Driving I see two muskrats in the road
One sniffing and nudging the other.
One will obviously never move again.
Mother, Father, Lover, Daughter?
It doesn’t much matter I suppose.
Driving by he or she scurries away.
In the mirror I see the muskrat return,
Once again nudging, staring, puzzled.
I briefly think about Muskrat Theology.
It’s not so funny I realize.
Concerning death do I know any
more than a muskrat?
—
Jul 04
Carpool
It wasn’t raining very hard at the time, but it had been.
I must have run into a deep pool of standing water in the road.
Instantly the car veers right and starts spinning.
Once or twice I can’t recall. Time slows, and still it happens so fast.
Nothing is heard. The vehicle is circling me as I don’t seem to be moving.
The steering wheel isn’t doing its job. Why doesn’t it work?
A distant crunch is felt more than heard. Immediate deceleration.
Was that me crashing into something?
Locked into the seat by ingenious restraints I’m moving backwards,
Rebounding like a pool ball off the rail,
And without warning here comes another car.
Acura corner pocket!
Jul 04
The Business of Corrections
The road that wraps around the prison is Progress Drive.
A Security Patrol vehicle keeps lookout above the parking lot.
You need a magnetic key card to get through the employee’s entrance door.
It also tells a computer what time you arrive.
Swiping your card past the sensor opens another door.
To the right is the path that takes you inside.
Pressing the button alerts “control” while a camera confirms identity.
Past this heavy metal door is a straight corridor that connects to Central Control.
Electronic eyes watch the approach.
You wait for one gate to slide shut that its opposite may open.
An officer exchanges keytags for office keys. No tag, no keys.
Folders, files, envelopes, even pockets are randomly inspected.
A sliding door with polycarbonate window, guaranteed to withstand
Assault for one hour with simple tools, opens onto a long well lit hallway.
This leads to the Restricted Housing Unit, or RHU, commonly called the hole.
Separate from the rest of the institution it is a Prison within the prison.
Two more sliding steel and polymer barriers are negotiated before reaching the unit.
One last button is pushed, requesting access to the cell block,
The lock releases remotely allowing entrance, a solid slam signals all secure once more.
Unlocking the office you are now ready to begin the business of Corrections.
