Awake (After a Dream)

Sunlight chimes morning and

Shatters glass.  Shards of window

Break and fall.  Pieces of day

Cover sidewalks, like leaves

After a cold rain.  Memory is now

Broken.  White-hot flecks

Steam and evaporate,

Tossed apart on the cement.

City Snow Thought/Connection

I saw a sign stuck in dirty, ice-fused snow,

The sooty mess piled high by sightless plow.

Cardboard swiveled on a broom handle

Like the helmet on a G.I. rifle.


Fresh snow and history-memory swirled.

Like G.I. scrawl it said “For the snow deprived".

                               
                                * * *

At The Checkout

At the checkout an old, thin woman argued.
She was being overcharged.  It was, maybe, fifty cents.
“Com’on” muttered another - impatient,
Carrying self-importance as much as groceries.
 

“Maybe she’s poor,” said a voice in defense.
“I’ll give her the money.  It’s just fifty cents.”
 

Maybe the old woman argued because once
When she was younger she held the world

With authority, with flesh, but was now reduced
To change, to the memory in her bony hands.

Walking

When we were younger, a New York morning

Was laced with last night's memories

Like new shoes with remembered twine.

Now our older mornings are stitched anew

With new laces and yesterday's shoes.

Hamlet In The Morning

Walking to work tired, feet sticky
With the aftermath of dreams.
They made sense earlier this morning
And still cling to my shoes.

Is this the way, always?
To wake.  To sip coffee and memory,
And then walk between
The linger and abrupt necessity?