I stood up from where I had lain on the floor of the warehouse. No windows or open doors were within my line of sight, yet I knew it was nighttime. I wish I could say how I knew, because my gut told me it was important, but right now I simply wanted to know why I wasn’t a corpse.
As I woke, I immediately felt the intense heat of the sun on my already sweating forehead. The first motion I made, before opening my eyes or taking a deep breath, was wiping the back of my hand across my brow and attempting to mop up some of the perspiration dripping down my face. It did little to help, but I didn’t think there was much that would help in this heat.
You can download the MP3 of Michael Harper reading his poem at this MediaFire link.
In the still, crisp hours,
Dark, circled eyes staring down shoes,
Pushing against quiet, forsaking boredom,
Panged stomach, demanding crackers,
Dark, circled eyes staring down shoes,
Reliable, white canvas, worn rubber,
Panged stomach, demanding crackers,
Licked lips, suggesting cigarettes,
Reliable, white canvas, worn rubber,
Pushing east, away from home,
Licked lips, [...]
When I was a kid I made art like a hurricane
but these days it just falls past my lips
like the shells of dead beetles.
I paint stick figures on bar napkins,
blow lopsided smoke-rings,
and write the same damn haiku a hundred times.
Night-time calls now were nothing in comparison to the rambling conversations they had had years ago. Now, at 2am, it was mostly he who rambled, his speech drunken and slurred, his intonation low and steady, a sleepy stream of commentary about the bars he had visited that night. She could hear the murmur of music and people talking in the background.