ON THE SEMBLANCE
OF THE MAD
HATTER
It wasn't baseball or even the shtick of the hobbyist -
fake comedian trying to tell jokes, modest monster
trying to scare kids. More it was merely a stand-up
situation of trading off space for situation : a lady in
the field with flowers, some young kid doing jumps on
a yellow bicycle, a schoolyard nun chasing down a
runaway softball. Everything looks funny in retrospect.
-
Outside, on the streetway macadam, a slow-crawling
police car rolled by, the cop within it intent on
reading
a dashboard computer screen instead of looking around.
The local garbage truck, roaringly loud, hustles blue
plastic containers off the curbs. More cars and a
dumptruck
rumble by, saddled with grime and dirt and people inside.
I feel like sleeping it off but there's nothing to sleep
off.
-
Music jangles the nerves - some stupid kids
bouncing
around outside the local gym, thrashing and bopping
to earbud music evidently shared. Idiot's delight, and
all the rest. A seventeen-year old, I'm watching, sneaks
a purloined cigarette to his feeble mouth, barely sure
of
how to light the thing he's holding. A girl he's with,
hair
streaked with vibrant blue, doesn't know to watch the
curb for others or laugh back at her beau, and stares.
-
A cartwheel by something from Heaven right now
would be about right : a few new angels on the head
of this day's pin, or a tongue of flame shooting the
moment like a celestial star riding in. Down the block,
at the candy store, a man frowns as he realizes he's
left his watch at home, can't imagine what time it is,
as
if there's any time at all; as if there's any time at
all.
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