Gone are the nights of catching the late ferry, and drinking beer in a phonebooth.
Waiting for the sun to rise,
the first bus of the day to arrive.
Trying to survive, on an hour of sleep in four days.
Iced beer breakfast, Kurt, Chris and Dave
keeping me company.
Splashing music in my face,
rocking me awake.
Now,
Phone booths are dodo,
and the train is free.
But, a cold Keystone and eggs
reminds me of rubber legs,
and intermittent blackouts.
Lying flat on my back, swirling in a dynamic pattern.
After five cyanide breath mints,
and an orange juice and black rum.
Teleported in a yellowcab,
crawling under a "Security" gate,
and hitting the rack.
Gone are the days of taking orders,
and unquenchable cravings
that creep into the brain
on the sixtieth day out to sea.
Three decades in the flash of a strobe,
and yet the glass is still nearly full.
Even a pessimist cannot speed up time.
I want to flaunt the law in a big way,
but, I know I won’t.
Such overt impish impulses are virtually tamed,
but in the back of my brain
there is a box with chains,
and a white beast with crimson teeth.
Claws click a cadence on the cold crate,
as it stares at a picture of a phone booth,
and sobs bloody tears, that drip red on the white.
It drinks ice beer, and wishes to turn back the days,
to when he and I ran hand in hand.
Back when I didn't give a damn.
***
***
Paul Gurrieri is five year wartime veteran of the US Navy, He has been around the block more than once, and has snapped ten billion pictures with the camera of his mind. Poetry is the only way he knows how to properly share those images, and will keep on sharing till the day his mind dies.
