Last Love Letter

Oh to vacation behind the heavy metal door To escape another election year. All news is stopped at the door by the guards Whoever sit in the same place Waiting Always Waiting to retrieve all banned goods And outside time. Between med time and bed time is empty time Where those evicted from their bodies Are stuck staring at their feet. But all have the midnight carousal Under their tongues “If that ***** doesn’t give me my meds I’m going to kick that door down. Either that door will break or my leg will.” The one mercy in the sexless hotel Memories fall way, sooner or later. Memories of what building was torn down. What now empty store front housed The latest failure Now lays in the darkened reminder of memory. And constant reminder of becoming what is left behind in the this is the city o Of the buried and forgotten. In their place every mind Is fixed With a retread with no memories at all And setoff to the outside and the vacation ends. But retreads always fall off and litter the roads Before they re-enter to antiseptic air. Only letters are allowed past the guards I can’t remember the last time a received A letter. Its all emails And telephone calls these days. Perhaps this is how I lost my sense Of anticipation. When was the last time I sent a letter? Inside we all can sleep the sleep of the forgotten Some of us have gotten our fill of the stars and prefer a ceiling to an indifferent sky and the empty heavens. All others from these ranks who never returned have wandered beyond the light of day into the trainless subway tunnels and into the fold of the disconnected brotherhood/sisterhood of the mole people. The mole people This is the real lost tribe of America living beyond the reach of landlords and their thugs for hire. For each there is no need to peer into the shadows of yet another condo. Their hidden jungle is not of the Amazon but the Subway system where no natural light ever penetrates. The soul is the first and cheapest thing to leave behind. I’ve heard the tribe will let you in as long as you mind Your own business. There are no eviction notices at these depths Yet. Their moon comes with the thunder overhead from passing cars. Those who wish to be forgotten, stay forgotten and are certain to replace the hopes for a headstone with that of a serial number marked for a pauper’s grave. This is the wish of the shut in to die nameless in their SROs or over priced one bed room pad in Washington Heights. (Hiding from who?) Hiding from those they wish to forget. A psychotic lover whose love is serrated and cuts too deep till it reaches bone. Their own home town which they attempted to cut the tether to in a desperate escape. Or death. Death is what comes too cheap for most and too soon for some or too late for all others. But if you dance forever you will never die. The Clocks Here clocks talk to each other Of all the collected hours by those who live by the clock or all who can exist in confined rooms as a natural environment with a waiting bathroom down the hall and one foot on the third rail The shut in turns a blind eye to the amateurs who fear being forgotten several stories down. 2 After all the deals are made and all the SROs torn down and those of us who grow tired of waiting for the eviction notice to be handed down by a judge on the take have moved on or held our ground and after all New York becomes “open for business” every street becomes just another bizarre, and when those who have been out to sea for far too long and wish to return home are met by closed port cities with indifferent silence (Even the circus of your life has moved on long ago. Do you care? The noise of the carousals have become muted) you can peer closely through the crowds to see the better ghosts among us the last of the American Tribe forever flailing in the last light of late evening fading.