Big Money

The Camera Eye (47)

sirens bloom in the fog over the harbor horns of all colors everyshaped whistles reach up from the river and the churn of screws the throb of engines bells

the steady broken swish of waves cut by prows out of the unseen stirring fumblingly through the window tentacles stretch tingling

to release the spring

tonight start out ship somewhere join up sign on the dotted line enlist become one of

hock the old raincoat of incertitude (in which you hunch alone from the upsidedown image on the retina painstakingly out of color shape words remembered light and dark straining

to rebuild yesterday to clip out paper figures to simulate growth warp newsprint into faces smoothing and wrinkling in the various barelyfelt velocities of time)

tonight now the room fills with the throb and hubbub of departure the explorer gets a few necessities together coaches himself on a beginning

better the streets first a stroll uptown downtown along the wharves under the el peering into faces in taxicabs at the drivers of trucks at old men chewing in lunchrooms at drunk bums drooling puke in alleys what’s the newsvendor reading? what did the elderly wop selling chestnuts whisper to the fat woman behind the picklejars? where is she going the plain girl in a red hat running up the subway steps and the cop joking the other cop across the street? and the smack of a kiss from two shadows under the stoop of the brownstone house and the grouchy faces at the streetcorner suddenly gaping black with yells at the thud of a blow a whistle scampering feet the event?

tonight now

but instead you find yourself (if self is the bellyaching malingerer so often the companion of aimless walks) the jobhunt forgotten neglected the bulletinboard where the futures are scrawled in chalk

among nibbling chinamen at the Thalia

ears dazed by the crash of alien gongs the chuckle of rattles the piping of incomprehensible flutes the swing and squawk of ununderstandable talk otherworld music antics postures costumes

an unidentified stranger

destination unknown

hat pulled down over the has he any? face