TOTAL POETRY 1 (10/16/02-5:20 p.m.)

I am the new director of a transitional
    facility for the formerly homeless
Sweating because I ran from 40th Street
    to this packed train on 33rd
Wet because it's raining two days
Sick because I don't take care
Like my mother said
Or eat chicken soup
But now I'm on 500 mg. Biaxin for 10 days

I'm studying shoes
I don't pay enough attention
But all that's going to change
And I'm starting with footwear
I see a brown and two blacks
One with a bow and gold-colored tassels
You can tell a lot by a shoe
I'm not sure what
When I know, you'll know
The conductor thanked every single person on this train
She was very polite in her shiny leather boots.


TOTAL POETRY 2 (10/17/02-10:40 p.m.)

A new train with red seats
If I don't have a ticket there's a $5 surcharge
Today I concluded I'm much more fucked
    up than I thought I was
It was raining
I stayed late for Thursday class
And I realized I am one fucked-up individual
I don't think it's obvious
I doubt it's unique
It's not poetic
It's not an epiphany
It's just one of those things
    when you're walking down Eighth Avenue
The guy with the beat-up loafers, the newspaper hat
Spinning in a circle
And you say, to yourself, softly
I'm not that different
As you get a cappuccino from Starbucks.


TOTAL POETRY 3 (10/18/02-6:17, Midtown Direct)

The sky is blue and red and yellow and grey
Churches, electric grids, smoke stacks, and a tree
Bridges, standing water, packs of dogs, a whistle screech
I always heard
You can't die in your dreams
Or, if you did, you were dead in reality too
But last night while I was sleeping
A guy took a big gun
A magnum something that makes a mess
He put it against my head
Pulled the trigger
Everything went bright white immediately
That was the end of that dream
But if I am dead,
Would I know?
Could be that's not Newark out there
The turnpike is only a cruel trick
The announcements they make about
    Broad Street are some delusion I have
    carefully constructed to fool myself
    because I didn't want to die
The Portuguese woman moving attractively to the
    nearest door is just some wild fantasy with
    lovely dark, curly lies flowing over her shoulder,
    her bag not full of oranges and a tin of cocoa
Or the dream didn't kill me
I lived somehow
Even though expired in my sleep
Another assertion disproved
Another rumor untrue
I'm not sure yet which
Given the choice
I hope it's just superstition
Death is too much trouble
When you don't know what it is.


TOTAL POETRY 4 (1021/02-5:20 Gladstone)
My comfort increases
The timed exits and entrances
The rush of bodies that glow with a certain need
Either money or excitement, sometimes just fruit wine
The kind we drank
In the woods, by a fire
Unless the cops came
Boone's Farm, Spodeeo
Putting nickels together or whatever, the other ones
Putting deals off the cell phone
Same funny look
Now I'm tired
William and his PTSD
Crying in my office
When I told him it was all right
Anything can happen to anybody
I might have just been saying it
But I wasn't just saying it
Anything can happen to anybody
I want to tell every person on this train
But they either know it already
Or they don't know it yet
And I won't change that just by telling
So I watch as the people go by
Mostly tired
Going home
As real to me as people in dreams.


TOTAL POETRY 5 (10/22/02 Gladstone)
I am tired
My knees hurt
My feet ache
I went by the library today
I couldn't find the book I wanted
I do not enter the vestibule while the train is in motion
I do not go anywhere
I sit patiently as the landscape rolls by
Knowing the mysterious sniper
Will probably not get me
He is busily shooting other people
In another state
And, like me, wants money
But unlike me is willing to go to great lengths to get it
Willing to cause considerable carnage
Saying he will stop
If the price is high enough
Maybe he's in debt
But he's got the money for a rifle and bullets
And his aim is pretty good.


TOTAL POETRY 6 (10/23/02-7:21 p.m. Dover)
Drunk on the 7:21
I watch as the lights go out
Everyone on the train is reading something,
    even in darkness
The guy next to me calls Dr. Kim
He's wearing a striped shirt with a very loud, clashing tie
And sneakers with these ridiculous reflectors, made for nighttime jogging
I don't think he knows I'm writing about him
I'm a drunk on the train
My bag of jumbo popcorn
Sitting next to me
Marisa met me after work
We had a few beers
She took a cab to the Nuyorican Poets Cafe and wanted me to go
I said no
In the Eighth Avenue bar, Wakimba
The beers were expensive
But the place was somewhat quiet
As we talked about life
And laughed and laughed.


TOTAL POETRY 7 (10/24/02-10:40 p.m. Dover)
I made the train by four minutes
After taking the M79 Crosstown bus
Coming down the Eighth Avenue line from 81st Street
I arrived at Penn Station, as I finished a story
About a cowboy in the New Yorker magazine
I wonder how many cowboys there are
I mean there must be a lot to generate so much fiction
Or if there number in print is out of proportion to their true percentage in the population
Which I think is the fact of the matter
Then I have to wonder
What is it about cowboys that is profound?
I mean, is there any reason at all to mention one?
Let alone spend 5,000 words describing his life
Do I gain anything from reading about these men from out west?
And I have to admit
I'm not sure
These are the thoughts that strike me
When a man in knee-length western boots and a Carhart jacket sits down across the aisle
His Marlboro cigarettes peaking out of his shirt pocket.


TOTAL POETRY 8  -  SNIPER CAUGHT (10/25/02-5:20 Gladstone Express)
They caught the sniper and his sidekick
The newspapers claim today
Leaving America safe
For Democracy and whatever else we do
Like shop
No more bullet riddled bodies at Home Depot or outside the mall
Until someone else goes over that line
I guess the lines are blurred
Even here on the train
Where the conductors seem so nice
Hopefully, they take their medication
Don't drink before they drive the caboose
And exercise their 4th Amendment rights in private
Like it says in the Constitution
But you don't usually have to worry about a conductor
They're very polite
It's the other passengers
With that vacant look
Reading the stories about the shootist
A vague smile on the face.


TOTAL POETRY 9 (10/28/02-5:18 Gladstone Express)
They changed the train departure time
2 minutes earlier today
I was running again
Still made it with 6 minutes to spare
My timing is impeccable
I'm always just late enough
That I have to run
Dashing down the street
Scaring the other pedestrians
Who try to dodge this barreling human vector
200 pounds of adrenaline, gastric juices, and flesh
Nearly colliding with everything in its path
And as I zoom past, I hear:
"Watchaout, what the heck" and other expletives besides
Packages falling behind me
Even old winos nearly dropping their bags
Clenching hand rolled cigarettes in their teeth
Exclaiming, "Where's the fire, asshole?"
"Where's the fire?"
But I don't listen
Because I have a purpose
I'm moving toward it
I know I will accomplish my goal:
To sit next to the actuarial reading the sports pages of the Monday Star-Ledger
Who wishes I had been slightly later
So he could have this seat to himself

©  2003 Tom Obrzut

The Pier

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