Post midnight afternoon crash induced
Insomniac
I take to the streets on the back
Of a K9
Summertime
Mug moist impersonation of a breeze
Rooftop perched
Chicken cooped
Air conditioners
And their thermostatically controlled
On
Off
Clicking
Well they add punctuation to the steam whistle August serenades
Of their window wedged compatriots
Sidewalk ozone crack seeking
Freon drippings
A valve sick 76 Olds 88
Tap dances by a boom boom boom box
Pizza joint smoking concrete concerto
Where
Ice cold Mogen David Orange melts
And slides into 20/20 night train visions
Everyone and everything moves
Everyone and everything moves
Everyone and everything moves
Just like
Night time
'Cause it is
And I wonder
What the guy on second shift is doing
To my machine
Friday factory hard core
Paycheck cashing long shadowed
Orange stucco walls arch over
A black laminated bar
Populated by long haired
Motorcycle types
machine oil perfumed women
And good old boys
Rubber band bouncing
Their frosted mugs
With pictor precision
Back walled pinball machines
Pick loose change
From permanently soiled Cintas trousers
With synthesized taunts
A jukebox corner sharing bowling machine
Squats ready to wrestle all comers
State of the art L E D eyes stare
With cool electric calm
But
The balls are right
Balls
Not cost effective pucks
Balls
Perfect round brown and white swirled
Softball swollen slag marbles
Left behind by some forgotten race of giants
I pick on up
And I'm six-years-old
With a pizza burger
And a pocket full of my grampa's change
It's Saturday morning
At Zele's bar
On 156th and Waterloo
In Cleveland
It's not there any more
And a year ago tonight
Neither was my grandfather
I was three thousand miles away
I can beat anyone
on this machine.
Time contracts
the instant glass breaks
flash freezing
for a splinter of silence
within which
all that was
that would and could be
converges into a sliver prick
of electricity
try it
throw a bottle against the wall
circus knife cart wheeling
whistle cutting through the air
flashbulb exploding and
everyone within earshot
will hold their breath
everyone
because at that moment
all bets are off
every opaque secret is laid out
like the diamond dust
of shattered windshield
across automobile hood or
the shards from
stack of diner white china
domino falling
to tile floor
behind speckled Formica counter
stopping the heart for a beat and a half
shocking bystanders
into sharp edged awareness
the everyday static
snatched away as if magician's
red checkered table cloth
bared souls teetering
long stem crystal goblets
oscillating to an upright standstill
on naked table top
when glass breaks
we reflex look inside
sans luxury of rose tinting
or UV protection
the lies we tell ourselves
that encapsulates us
in the protective vacuum
of frosted incandescent globes
become instantaneously transparent
our regrets magnified
in the blinding flare of light
before the bulb blows
our bodies paralyzed
as we stare into the cracked
mirror reflection
of our every inadequacy
for that split second
when glass breaks
but then
someone grabs a dustpan
and conversations begin again
and we live our lives
as if nothing ever happened
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michael salinger has been writing and performing poetry and fiction for over 20 years. in this time he has become a fixture in the performance poetry community in cleveland, ohio. his work has appeared in dozens of literary journals published across the us and canada, including Poetry Magazine, Saphire Magazine, Taproot, the Detroit Metro Times and the Cleveland Free Times.
stoop in front of irv's
hoggies saloon
cleanup
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