The LaGuardia Dirge of Taxi 3B92

I.
Driving past St. Michaels cemetery
with stony wings they collectively embrace
the Traffic of oncoming souls
impatiently demanding entrance within.
The upturned curl of secretive smiles
reveals some familiarity
(snobbery?)
towards the faceless names.
Tranquil and with peace they welcome
as the color slowly bleeds away.

Here the young and old come in forms of cement and stone
creeping alongside the thoroughfare
Alien yet reassuring
ease found in the upholstered scent of cigarettes
as washing machines fly by in fiery red.
Or was it avocado green?

Stop

Soft September sleeps with sharp breezes
curls and hugs around marbled arcs
leans against red October
to arch and stretch its aching back
at once ready to pounce and eat meek November.
But the children are too busy to notice
always on the

Go

They continue to erect quill pen monuments to the past.

I am crawling in a land very grownup
towards gaunt steel
eye-less skeletons
through cloudy beards.

Stop

Triboro TriBeCa Manhattan the Bronx
or Queens
they all parade here in height of style with
diamond studded collars or shocks
of pink hair.
All blank stares
for here they are equal
Applying universal truths:
Go


Stop
So one can pause
yet again
to sample the frigid down
That carpets all with a mystic green
Or mint fresh really--
With a scent only easy to absorb when iced
Or taken with vodka sours twice.
So cool.
Too damn cruel for me.


II.
But I knew it!

Go

Am gonna fade
Fade on into the gray

I should be scared
hung by my hair
as I rode the Manhattan thoroughfare
And though all was fleeting
Prada and Gucci bled green
blending to Todd Oldman and other
Artistes with an "e"

Poured liquor
down my throat
only to sputter splutter
gasp and choke
Drowning in an anesthetic haze
but watched in disbelief
as my hand reached for more
to dull the pain.

But it did nothing
except force me
to

Stop

Watch through a smoky mirror
a hand open the door and
others work.


III.
Frigid and rigid am sitting so close
Yet the yellow chair is a galaxy away.

From my view I can watch skeletons swing
As they get off hangers and tramp through daydreams.

Their jaws talk soft
And their bones fight hard
Yet still the body exists disconnected
With a circuit undone long ago.

How can the electron flow be changed?
I don't even know if I am too late.
So long ago I left the fields
To get a drink of water
And came back later with champagne flutes.

But you did not leave.

I cannot tell where time forgot you in its spell
In many ways I feared to become you
Viewing myself at thirteen
sinking into those shoes
Drowing being the driving force
For myself to change
Fight to become awake.
To force myself from the skull
as the pressure pushed like toothpaste
Killing my breath
To let myself die deep in dream
Than fill that awful suit of clothes

And in the moment of fading light
the heart beat again
Stat!
Shocked by God
to open my eyes
To paint and plaster erected by
years of despair
and
With savage swing of a sledgehammer
Blow
Blow blew
It down.

Falling like the
Berlin wall
Full of hot fury at being so deceived
To let it even become erected
Agony
Angry that I could not believe
What others saw within already.

Yet you are not free.


To dissect and pull wires would be so easy
If only I could tell which cord was which
To grasp and pull and yank
But with willow finger
Time has already touched me and
The current runs with shocking warning:
My sight now clear will fade
My mind….

In some ways I fear
What you may say if I dug deep enough
Through the pain
What screaming truth would be revealed
if electrons were to collide?
The wall now fallen
cannot shield
And the rubble will not let me hide.

But it does not matter
you see?
I have died once before and
the pain does not matter a second time

The Chinese scrolls once noisy are now silent
The yellow chair has been left behind
My hands sweat blood and grasp the panes tightly
Watching skeletons dance then die

The electricity burns and hisses with ozone

It does not hurt the second time.