Bottled Water

He was to be buried at sea

Devil in the details

Flock
out of New York New York
across into the Great Western Parking Lot
but this bridge reaches the horizon
when you're walking it
and it's a long goddamned walk
alone.
Some mystical person
had told him (once)
you could only cross
if you sacrificed your possessions
all of them
into the river
the goddamned Hudson River.
And he did.

What was his name?
The sobriquetted bum in some alley of a street;
sobriquet being another word for "nickname"
only used by classy people who didn't need one;
classy being a word for upper class.
The upper class passed the mystic in the park
as the wind passes the buildings
and the bar-crowd passes each other at 4 a.m,
and received not his veiled wisdoms
and insane ramblings.
You had to use your judgment
in taking advice from a guy
who wore his entire wardrobe
every day of his life.
Common sense.

Things to set adrift
downstream,
is that ocean-bound?
An ideal type
cast like silver
coins.
A penitent ghost dance
sinking to the bottom
and a view from the bridge,
shoeless,
and with all the conviences
of modern civilization
without the hassles
of civilization.
It's all in your mind anyway.

This doesn't work in a church
open-air
invite all your homeless friends
release some doves
and all that jazz.
But still here we are
laying in the dark
still two people
and not metaphors
just flesh and blood and silence.
We wouldn't be any happier in California
let's not even cross that bridge -
I would burn it but
you don't even have the energy to hail a cab
and this was supposed to be a dream.
I've got to stop dreaming, he said.
And downed the whole bottle.

Ambition

A lamppost burned out
on the Ferry Street overpass
as he walked past the light
upper class enough to have an ancestral home
and for reasons not:
it was complicated.
he would say

a fog rolled in from the river
or wherever it comes from
when it mixes the moonlight with headlights
from passing cars and carries the smell of industrial waste
and he found
discovered a city park abandoned of fog and light and people
and imagined a single cricket
industriously scurrying across the city to keep time
and remind the solitary that they were alone
and he couldn't sleep on the wet grass
and was reminded
and this is what it felt like