Leaving
Cohoes
was trading one
lifestyle
for another. He sd., "You
leave
all those burned
out
buildings, slum
dwellings,
garbage pickers on
sidewalks
mucking with the
trash.
Up river we don't
have
none of them
darkies
polluting our
neighborhoods.
Got me a nice,
cheap
cold water flat
needs
a little work and it'll
be
paradise compared to
what
I just left
behind."
By cold water
flat,
we guessed that meant no
hot
water, his excuse for not
having
showered in weeks during
record
heat wave or shaving his Ho
Chi Minh
beard, wants it to be called
a Fu Manchu
claiming he never heard of
Ho,
though we knew for a fact he
came
of age in the
60's.
Certainly none of the values
of
that Aquarian Age like Peace,
Love
and Brotherhood clung to
him
except maybe a need to
wander
on the cheap overseas
to:
India, New Zealand,
Australia
where native
painters
drew aboriginal song lines
through
figures meant to represent
his heart
left temporarily slack to be
pulled taut
at a later, unspecified
date.
When the line is made
tight
a crow flies and paleface
dies.
We could sell
tickets
if we only knew when
After the
Limelight
Facially, he looks his age,
60,
but has the arms & upper
body
of a much younger man,
could
almost have stepped in &
played
the way he had in his
prime,
long before gray hair, game
leg
& back from career
ending
car wreck, no education, a
rare
undrafted, no college,
player,
almost unemployable at
any
position, a one
dimensional,
one skill player without a
high
school diploma either, no
one
asked for when he could flat
out
fly with any football that
fell into
his hands, the problem not
what happened after but
before,
getting the ball into his
hands,
rumor was you pointed in the
direction
he was to run & said,
Go!,
& he did, which was great
for kickoffs,
punts even, at which he
excelled, could
still be seen on Classic
Sports TV
returning with the All Time
Greats
when he drove sports
cars
ran like a man
possessed
& buses were for kids to
ride
from one game to the
next
Princess
Some days
she wears an
embroidered
blouse-scrolled lettering
spells:
Princess-highlighted by
a bouquet of
flowers:
blue, pink &
green
Other days
she wears a custom
made
belt buckle with her worn
jeans,
faded plaid shirt, long
hair
the color and texture of
straw-tied
tied tight as broom
bristles
beneath a red Harley Lover
bandanna
Clutches
a worn hardcover
copy
to her chest of 'Princess
Daisy'
or the latest trials and
tribulations
magazine, scandal sheet, hard
or
soft cover book, on the life
and times
of Princess
Di
While she is
waiting
for the bus, regular riders
observe:
"That girl travels about
like
some crazy woman but she
never
goes
anywhere."
Sometimes
The Princess may press her
leg
close against a male
passenger's leg
making him, this stranger
wonder,
"Is this some kind of nervous
crowding thing
or a come on, pick me up,
move?"
Who knew,
really? She never
speaks,
can't, in
fact,
mistrusts the spoken word as
the deaf
& dumb will, preferring
thoughts, ideas, words
transmitted through reading
material,
in books or
on-line,
once she has traded commuter
bus riding
for a home
computer,
for more or less, safe
Internet surfing,
subject searching New York
Public Library
holdings for shadowy tales of
royal
blue bloods throughout
history,
all the phantom love
experiences
she craves, haunting the
stacks,
our pale lady of the lovelorn
presiding over morgues of the
recently
living and the dead.
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