There's another man my age
On the other side of town.
He's got my face, my exact face.
Our back accounts are different.
For all I can tell, his car is nice.
Married, big happy family.
His jokes are the same as my jokes.
I saw him at a cafe yesterday.
I was sitting with my daughter.
He was sitting with his son.
For a moment we made eye contact.
He laughed through it
Pitching his head back,
Sustaining the contact with me,
His doppelganger.
Then back to his son,
Then me back to my daughter.
Yesterday I watched him get on a plane to Wichita,
Hugging good-bye to his wife and kids at the gate.
There goes my face, I thought, off to Kansas.
Doors closed as the plane taxied away
And his sad family meandered.
"Daddy!" yelled his youngest
Spotting me behind the fern
50 ft away in front of
Fern Gully's Gastropub.
Taxied to the terminal. The fare paid,
vagrants begged for alms, some too drunk to care.
Shrunken faces, weather beaten, they played
a sad tune of which I was unaware.
Some had the means, even possessed the fare
to transport them to towns with better care.
I passed the huddled poor, stepped on the bus,
took my seat at a window facing west.
Soon, the highway’s open arms greeted us.
No longer stranger, a solemn house guest.
Believing the ride would force me to test
my endurance, I slept. I’m not a pest.
Vegas came, sponged every cent from my purse.
Should have listened to the driver. He knew
how slots are rigged; still, could’ve been much worse.
Could’ve sold my soul since winners are few.
Back on the bus, we zipped through burgs so new
to me, I ticked them off my map on cue.
Three days passed. Felt like a tree that was felled.
Then I saw my love. So nice to be held.
Urban Sonnet poetry contest: 5/17/19 by Emile Pinet
The first flight left on time
And landed at the proper gate,
But someone took its parking place
And so we had to wait.
We didn't have a lot of time
For our connecting flight
And heavy rain just added to
Our still unfolding plight.
The pilot taxied 'til he found
A place to park the jet.
We had to dash to buses,
So we all got soaking wet.
We found the listing for our flight,
Most likely fully boarded
And ran to get our passports stamped;
Impatience still rewarded.
With twenty minutes 'til our plane
Would take off to the skies,
We raced full speed, most grateful
That we're fit from exercise.
We made the flight with minutes left
Until they shut the door,
A closer call than any other
That we've had before.
We caught our breath, sat down and smiled,
Our peace of mind restored
Except for one small worry -
Did our luggage get on board?
(P.S. I wish it weren't so.
Alas, the answer turned out No!)
Past and Present; A Blueprint for Success
Ancient legends reside on worn stones;
carry out their journeys through time.
Nothing is ever new, it is only
rediscovered by new senses.
Birds of iron and steel taxied across
ancient deserts millennia ago;
are depicted on ancient temples and pyramids,
the world over.
In Alexandria, Egypt;
sailors guided by an old light house;
traveled ancient seas in search of gold and lapis.
The technology is lost in the folds of time.
Egypt’s electricians are remembered,
despite efforts to deny them;
the artists of their times have,
immortalized them in stone.
Modern man, a creature of technology;
fails to duplicate what, the ancients knew and
saving face, destroys the whole planet for,
lack of the ancient knowledge.
Lost is the original set of blueprints; trial and error are the ends when,
we forget the past in favor of the future.
Like siblings, past and future must, grow up together.
Favor one over the other and something is lost.
In looking back as we look ahead in the present;
nothing is truly impossible.
Scarce a year it was before my birth,
that Lindy set The Spirit down
at Le Bourget one night
and all the old voitures
as suddenly lit up the runway
with their headlights.
as he taxied to a stop.
Thirty years beyond, I landed there
from fair Bruxcelles and it was day;
the city of the light took rest
avant le gaiete of night—
there was no welcoming:
"Attencion Monsieur,
you are in zee way,"
and my attempt at French
brought only curious stare.
"Et je n'ai pas de plus argent
and little more to bear me home
to Orleans. Je suis un etranger
dans ma cite des grandes lumieres, "
I thought, and sent my fond farewell
to Brussels and its wondrous minature
Etats Unis and Circarama
still unknown in fifty years back here.
Sacre Bleu! C'est incroyable
that naked little boy in Belgium,
and the Champs above the catacombs
in Paris, now still flaunt their youth,
their vibrancy, as I advance
to that dim room somewhere
when irony prevails—where Lindy,
luckier than I, will share with me
the just equality of death.
~
The red tail light of the 737 flashed rhythmically against the dark skyline
It taxied its approach on the runway, everything was set, it all looked fine
She looked out the window across the dark land wondering if he was there
She had left him a note, she explained it all to him, she told him that she cared
She checked her gold watch as the planes engines powered up, starting to whine
This time is for me, she thought to herself, I deserve it, it’s all mine
The plane took off racing down the airstrip about to take flight
I have known for a long time about this, I have always been right
As the plane left the ground and accelerated up into the midnight sky
She questioned herself, her note and considered one last, just one more try
Big hands taxied me up
to the seat
I took for a cradle
on a back already bent
and filled with rutted lines and bite scars,
his hair was still brown
but in spots,
where the skin panicked for cover,
age sprang up like the General’s venerable gray
and He stood there laughing with the crows
about how regal I looked
with a toy whip in one hand
but how I looked
was unimportant
as we moved my smell bled through
and two aggressive rings flared
and figured me out-
a few more feet and I could feel the unsettling shift
of unhappy weight beneath my reach.
So I held fast
to the great Van Dyke brush
(its fibers and bristle
magnetized from front to back)
with a handle carved
from thick muscle,
that clung for life to the bones
but He did not notice
the flex in the gelding’s arcing neck,
and He must have sneezed, or blinked,
through the vital twitch
that shook
and dissolved into
hyperbolic, bay curves:
when it upset the Dauphin’s new throne
with a weak kick,
everyone was surprised.
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