Harold Janzen
tom waits
(for gabriel)
out of nowhere tom
waits at the corner of two famous street
signs
while progress liquefies turns
a honey like consistency
flowing into the velvet underground
he takes a coffee shop in thru a hundred dollar bill
looks at his plans but
has lost most of his concrete karma at ground zero
his nose to the grindstone
the weather consuming the landscape
painting by numbers
tom becomes distracted
watching for whistles and belles
in the flotsam of the golden
sweetness he takes what is left
of his trinkets and swallows a drink along with the mystery
there were big questions
to ask the traffic lights
about last night’s rotisserie
was there a sailor named gabriel
on a sailboat named angel
an old radio that went oddly with the music
of the spheres
oh it was a busy little medley
that memory
had gabriel and tom made history together
poured from a gin bottle
and chased with that white parrot fizz
blazing down a snow hill in a green skinned
wooden ribbed canoe
tom barrelhousing the blues
and gabriel steering a line thru the white mecca powder
with a paddle for a spoon
it was a good way to circle the earth in a balloon
or at least that’s how tom sang that confused
chop story to the judge
of rhymes
wow tom was lucky enough to get thru that turbulence
a bruise and a hefty line and of course
being careful only out on bail
as for gabriel
wherefore art thou shouts tom
where the hell was gabriel
jekyll and hyde
maybe thankful for the calm no doubt
before the storm of these words
she seemed unpredictable in the impossible traffic
she seemed unpredictable in the impossible traffic
slipping thru the
sultry weather
stampede of auto
-matic responses
but got me to the train on time
she was like the tropics in my hair i couldn’t shake
her image stirred up my subconscious she was the butterchurn
for my internal dialogue over the hilly country
i hope she made it back to the coast safely
*
she read in the shadow of an umbrella
and wrote to her diary
some sort of farewell carefully
building her sentences in order to stabilize
her reality alone
eventually stepping from the footing of her pages
out from underneath
and into the unusually bright sunlight
wading into the tide
and finally detaching herself temporarily from the
architecture of time
diving perfectly into the fathomless the
brilliantly blue sky that moved thru her body
descending into the delicate curvature
of the beautifully shaped moment
and vanished into the cool surprise of the bay
**
along with the fiery drama of the sunset
he found himself looking thru
by memory
the pages he knew from the diary
and with the abandon of its bindings
so strongly entwined
he sat
intrigued
by himself
looking out from the high elevation
buoyant with the possibility of her
return to the strong potion he was mixing
his mind like the mirror express he imagined
that she could step out from
or possibly from the inversion of the sky itself
out of the station of its middle distance
them both
smiling once again breathing the stimulant
©2004 by Harold Janzen
Harold Janzen says "I ran into a friend I hadn't seen in a long while. He was writing a film
script, but said he was too bored and distracted by the many sequels to
his white bread day job. We agreed that our only means was to sharpen the carrot at the end of
the stick. At least we would be getting our vegetables."
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