4/5 train, Borough Hall Station, June 27th, 2013
His new candy bar was defective and we shared words about that. He returned with a new one and I asked for a poem. I’m thinking: what a bright and articulate man. I was shocked to find this out: “I’m still a teen.” He’s in college, living in the “poetic shadow” of his sister. I asked why he seemed so mature. “Both of my parents are psychoanalyists…”
A proud pedestrian
not quite a thespian
but an ear clearer
than the summer night sky
for rhyme.
A daily dose of poetics
makes me feel better than copacetic.
In lines we find time:
less hectic.
And I wish I could go on
a skipping stone to throw on
my life organized in verse:
a mowed lawn.
My mouth, an organ wise to curse
but why waste precious breaths
on negativity, second best?
I don’t, but I lost my train
on the train trying to stay
sane in the humid city summer
I made: don’t rain on my parade.