28 July 2008

benjamin nardolilli

hot summer night

Uptown is Downtown,
And the tenements
And the skyscrapers
Have all gone dancing
With each other, as
I run trying to get to you.

The park is melting
And its lights are filled
With incandescent cobwebs,
The rumbling under me
Threatens the whole infrastructure.

Your window is broken,
So I howl with the rats
And you’ve become the moon,
The cream oval is looking away,
Trying to set and leave me alone.

In the flatlands, I walk,
Until I find friendly monkeys
Holed up in a brick cage.
We drink cheap imports
And when they turn their backs
I run, trying to get to the mailbox

Hoping to stop the money from getting through.

waiting for the night train

Burnt or buried,
Death will take me as I am.
I will not worry
About what to wear:
Death comes even to the naked,
Or who I am with, for
No crowd can fight an enemy
That makes no sound and is swift,
With the twist of the heartstrings,
And the crashing of all memories.

The dark curtains are drawn.
I must approach, to enter
The cave behind them,
Not with too much sadness,

Or with fear,
I must be willing to leave
It all behind, yet
I must not be happy,
Or come running,
To look eager to leave is wrong for me,
What would it make my life seem?
A painful affair, a drawn out race
That I am quitting in disgust and exhaustion?

Death will not come to me,
I will come to it, and come
With a cryptic smile on my face,
A jagged line across my lips,
To keep the reaper guessing,
If its game is just a joke,
And I am the straight man
Setting death up for the punch line.

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