Life As We Know It

 

When the gloss

finally goes

 

slubbered

dulled down

 

to a dreadful

shade of pale

foggy grey

 

then you get

what you

get

 

get what

you paid for

 

what you

brought home

 

then you get

finally

what you

 

somehow

deserve.

This Late, Alone

 

This late, with so few

Awake, I can take

My time

 

I can tick time

Even trick time

 

It’s all mine to divvy

Or divide

 

Spend it, or mend it

 

A drunken sailor

Drunken tailor

 

Why, I can hold

Whole hours

In my head

 

Or be led

Astray this way

My day

Going, going

 

Like I’m king

Of clocks and

Calendars

 

And Tuesday

Clingers, lingers

A disturbance

A delay

 

At 11:45

I’m alive

And alone

 

Feeling the minute

Of each minute

The slide of seconds

The heft of the hour

 

The feeling of power

Over this hour

 

I’m king of this slip

This snip of history

This late – Alone.

  homeless

 

The homeless travel light, regard

style and such with alarm and drink

from bags full of a full bag’s worth,

their full dose of today.

 

They gesture and swagger,

like dancers gone mad, got old,

fell on them hard times

We’ve heard so much about.

 

They lunch on whatever they can

wherever it comes from, where it’s

 gone from us, from bins and cans

and our dumpsters aplenty.

 

They’re satisfied with the alleys we

shade our buildings with and decorate

with our leavings -- leaving them to them,

leaving them our empties,  empties

they return to us

a nickel’s worth

at a time.

 

J.K. Durick