Nudnick

Nudnick By Sy Roth Self, I say Self, Wake up. Your ganglions Are asleep again. Wakey, wakey… Those around you, nudnick, Are whirling dervishes Those who come and go In the Speakeasys of their lives And I am a silent partner. Wake up dammit It’s slipping away You’re letting it slip away While the humped dowagers Prepare their casseroles For the hungry men who’ve passed. See in their eyes Your sadness, Nudnick, Where’s the fun in your voyage Careless self Elf of the bygones, Shelf where the platitudes lay Dusty Fusty hungry dinks waiting For their revival Wrapped in their silent home Domicile of mordant cells For the somnambulist to walk echoey corridors. Awaken before it is too late Or perhaps it is. The monster is caught galumphing to Bedlam And the nudnick sits on the side of the road Waiting for him to pass Like a hundred-car freight train crossing. Wake, I hear it in my ear! Wake the nudnik from its dream The train is a never-ending circus cavalcade, And he yawns as it passes by. They all yawn as he passes by. I yawn for myself Yearning to avoid the parade As my eyes close and sleep invades my reality.