Thursday, September 6, 2012

Washington Square




Some it comes to this again
Smiling faces in concrete
Listless souls forever prisoners
To this all might wheel,
Circling like pathetic moons
Chained to it by invisible links
Harder than steel to break
Each of us like tiny silver balls
In an insane game of roulette
Always putting our money down
On the wrong numbers
Me, sitting at the north end
At zero zero,

I am tin man whose heart
Has stopped ticking,
Thinking of those other times
I sat here,
Sometimes the brainless
Scarecrow,
Most often,
The cowardly lion,
Dorothy long gone
To wander this less
Than emerald city
Clicking her heals
Washing water over
Every witch she sees
Singing her songs
To the wind

I write in this notebook
Out of context
Out of mind
These words like all words
Too weak to lift the burden
I need them to lift,
Even Atlas could not
Bear this burden long,
Calling to Pluto or Apollo,
Throwing his chips
On this wheel,
The way I do mine,
Waiting for the little silver
Ball to stop,
Waiting for everybody
To stop orbiting this circle,
Waiting for me to sit
Anywhere else
But zero zero.

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