The first intrusion was a sense of confusion.
So, I closed my eyes and staggered.
My head was getting heavy and numb from the timpani drums.
They’re louder than bombs. 

Everything has changed.
The sun looks different,
But the clouds look the same.
That’s what’s so alienating.

With the pavement all around me, I saw how unnatural this all was.  Thought about 7^th street.  No one was beside me, so the gate was open.  But, I wanted the drama.  I continued on to the triumph of civil service, a symbol of forward progress and colonization and frontier glory and risk and ritual and art.  The approach of the city.  Its beauty from afar.  The lights.  Gateway to the rest. 

It would be nice if there was a highway drive through the arch. Horace agreed with a dissonant chord on his keys.

Every 5 minutes I would have to painfully force my body to a straight, upright position to provide relief to my burning back. Black James and I were teamed up on this clay trench delight, working it in to lay PVC to keep a suburban basement dry. The clay pushed back at our shovels like we were unwelcome invading Goliaths.

It’s “Black James” because James always made skin color a topic of conversation. His complexion was extremely dark. James was a rather stout individual with a confident gait, walrus-long pearly white teeth with a few gold caps barely visible when he spoke, and a jet black mustache so thick it probably needed to be combed daily. James was probably just shy of 60 years old. He had grey patches peppered all around his ears and poking out of his ears.

The suburban owner we were digging for dragged his right foot a little and always had a saliva bubbles in the right corner of his perpetually smirking mouth, like he’d had a stroke. He walked his beautiful Airedale incessantly. We sat there staring at the guy as he humbly and sadly hobbled with his rigid, physically sturdy dog. We rested like always – on upside-down plastic buckets at break time. James muttered in a condescending tone, “They love their dogs.” I knew immediately that he meant “those crazy white people.”

James just cracked into a story unannounced, which was usual. And, it was typically a story that wasn’t triggered by anything. They would just fall out of his mouth like someone had put a coin in him and randomly chose something on a jukebox. He started, “Well, I been sellin’ some cars. Had a few white boys come out to look at one.” I replied, “You sell cars?”  He barked back, “Ya I sell cars! I do alotta things. You don’t think I just dig ditches, do you?” I quickly retorted, “No, no, I just didn’t know you sold cars.”

James went on defiantly, “Well… that’s what I do… I sell cars. I also worked twenty-five years sellin’ cigarettes. I wore a suit. I had to look sharp to sell them things. Never smoked ‘em until recently, then I go and get hooked on these goddamn things,” he said, as a foot-long menthol cigarette bounced around on his lower lip.

“Anyway, these two white boys came out to my place to look at this car I had. Same kinda car Superfly drove.” He reflected up at the sky, “ ’72 El Dorado… Superfly’s car was souped up with, you know… all that extra shit.” James stared at me as he gasped for air and took a big loud gulp of Styrofoam cup water. “Anyway, these guys start complaining to me, on my fuckin’ property… they got some kinda nerve.. about the price of the car! I said, ‘Look, this is a black man’s car anyway. So, what are you boys doin’ here anyway? You knew how much I was asking for it. So’d you just come here, come to my home, to complain to me about the price? Well, I’m not sellin’ you the car anyway. This is a black man’s car and you don’t need to be ridin’ around in a black man’s car. It’s best you boys just go on home and stop wastin’ my time with wantin’ a black man’s car, cuz it just ain’t for you.”

“Wow”, I said. “So you didn’t sell them the car!”

“No… I wouldn’t sell ‘em the car,” he said with a long drawl and wide eyes. “They don’t need to be ridin’ around in a black man’s car. That’s just the way it is. I’m sorry. Actually, I’m not sorry at all. That’s a black man’s car and I’m gonna keep it that way,” he said, with an arm flourish and a big thick toke from his cigarette.

Is a minor mistake

Granted by the unknown cattle-driving king of the satellites.

Overloaded systems of electrical sanity

Were once on the verge of a playful elasticity,

Where every morsel was confined to dustpans

Arranged for stagehands

With clubs in their hands,

Tied to battle flags

Dug in the sand.

We pretend to be lovers

When we discover

A ladle in each hand.

Pointy sharp thistles

Whistle to birdsongs

Nestled together like low gliding rings of light-

Hoops of sound moving by the pull of the moon

Through shuttles of comfort

Delivered on beds in the night.

Groups of multi-legged monsters creep

In the steep of the sliced citrus,

Begging for a taste of our waste

We'll never notice,

Although, someone told us

They'd hold us

With pillars and beams and old fashioned steam.

Now the way in the wave on the flag

With rebels gave way

To the will of the people

Minus steeples.

Capital hatchlings squak,

Welp,

And forget to help

Under the guise of the wise,

But I don't care

Because I have my own device.

The semi-sweet undercurrent

Arrives in a hurry every time I stop,

Sold out because I let everyone in.

So, the sky sucks me in-

To the tune of a bronze-forged giveaway

That my uneven monster put up for rent.

So, I'll unwind like I'm blind

Just to keep with the times-

A drink in a hand,

Cares at my feet,

Shoulders hung low,

Devils shoved to-and-fro,

Their talons turned in because I prove I'm better at sin.

And the tide takes me out

For one last drink

Until I'm forced to think

About the dunes

And the ruins

That kept us from light.

My other hand wields a pen

That's sharp without paper,

Without a thought,

Without a fountain,

Without being taught-

It's just a friend.

The sun spliced through buildings, and the two of us squinted with quips for the morning doldrums and ho-hums along with the wholesome bits of what the afternoon should be. We gathered the sidewalk step by step. A homeless man stood in the shade of a building and wrestled with a sardine can. The sardine juice hit his shirt and he mumbled a cartoon disgust. The homeless man was so thrilled with his sardines, he never noticed the flurry descending around him. Our eyes were caught by feathers dancing on the cement. The feathers were fresh and downy. Two more drifted from the sky into the dance.

We looked up. A hawk in a clever eagle's outfit lurked above us. His pronged beak rudely pointed at us. His hateful eyes stared at every single person on the street at once, but I suspected he was burning my soul. I felt like I had seen him before. 

The hawk was also dancing, atop ragged pigeon flesh. He pulled and pulled as if the pigeon was about to get away. The unlucky bird was burst open, splayed across a decorative metal shade structure, where the hawk safely played. We never lost a step.

We paid and paid for lunch. The hawk was forgotten. We traced our steps back. But, there stood a friendly reminder. The homeless man was still chattering, but with half of his wrinkly left index finger buried in his nose. At the last second, I looked up to see that the bastard hawk had left his bloody pigeon coat draped above me. My eyes slowly scanned the corners of several buildings to see if he was still watching. I think he was, but from where?