-when no one’s around-

1.
I’d walk to all the familiar places

but nobody’s around.

I have money in my pockets

but not much.
two dollars and thirty five cents would be a close call.
the scent of the bakeries has long faded.

Whitey’s two-pump Esso Station is closed

and the little shack where he sits, listening
to the radio between each dollar's worth of regular, is locked-up tight.

this is the little shack where he sobers-up, unconsciously.

it's a short walk across the street, and at the door,

I cup my eyes to peer through the nicotine-stained window

to see if he's laying on the greasy floor

in a pool of blood and vomit.
one phone call from my house and I'm a hero.
or a fink.

the Marconi Club is closed since midnight, yet stinks-up

the surrounding atmosphere in stale Bohemian beer and cheap Port.

the park’s empty–– empty and quiet, perpetuating
the usual early morning anticipation of rejuvenation.

the art of the overpowering center billboard of three
between Whitey and Marconi is terribly torn by weather or vandals.

the tear looks like an icy stalactite, one jagged point

hovering over a cigarette smoking blonde's big blue eye!

maybe something new is going-up.

maybe it’s the end of its existence.

just beyond the roof of my house, the once
complex mechanisms of the junkyard rest in peace

without the nuisance of their ornaments

being crowbarred and ripped from their hoods

like so many gems of the mine.

2.
prime examples of physical and metaphysical industry
will soon reclaim themselves.
the Diner's stainless frialator will begin to crackle and spit.

the Church, having absolved its weekly sinners
at Saturday confessionals will begin to toll for their communion.

the early Sunday morning Sun is inching its way above the fresh-
water ponds of the Narrows, glinting the great Watuppa, but as of yet
nobody, and I mean nobody's around.

let’s say..1953. Quequechan