Wall-oems?

So, for the past few months, admittedly very sporadically, I've been posting these tiny little weird poems on people's Facebook walls. Usually, it's the result of writer's block: for some reason, I can always think of at least 6-8 lines of pure gibberish to spam someone with, while I find it impossible to sit in front of Microsoft Word and write, you know, a REAL poem.

Some might make very little sense to others, as the subject matter stems from my memories of places and specific outings or conversations with friends. One day I hope to see them published. So far, all I've gotten is rejections...But feel free to enjoy nonetheless...


Below are a couple:

*

It happens that way sometimes, a brisk wind all it takes to light half the world ablaze, to throw us into perpetual night, everything choking on itself like that great snake swallowing its own tail. I had not seen you in days, the month the ash covered us over, took into itself mountain and city and sickly, drying river, and though I felt need of your company, how could I have known? through the haze, the lowering yellow cloud of so many things burnt and burning, I could no longer tell: you may have been across the street, behind that smoke so thick I could not see but a foot ahead. You may have been silent, standing right beside me.

And some days we talk about Iowa, the flatness, the silk of corn tassels carpeting the horizon, how it smells of loam and sometimes of baking bread, and then one of us jumps, shudders a little with the memory of cicadas, their creaky high violin-noise throughout the night. We remember the dried husks they make while dying, that litter the sidewalks, that you can stuff with tissue paper: dignified museum displays, no longer insect but the thought of insects, wisps for legs, empty eyes, the thorax flaking off in pieces like old varnished wood, a detritus of once-life that reminds what we lose daily, that reminds us we have a skin at all.

One night when I thought that at least the sleeplessness would take me, I heard your buoyant footstep on the steps, and your voice, and the crystal clanking of the cheap wine glasses being pulled from their shelf, and my sleeplessness evaporated while we sat on the carpet consuming a bottle of red, blinking downy dog hairs from our eyelashes, the walls populated by your books leaning down on us benevolently, the woods outside humming with mosquitoes and bees and what sounded like bloom and bud and leaf, all venturing forth under cover of dark.

Compassion: Lodz Fabrycznya Station

It's a new month. I had thought it might be noteworthy by some drunken revels, or rife with stories of famous monuments. Yesterday, I found myself typing into an IM screen: I'm kind of ready to be home. Or at least, stationary...

I've always traveled with family, or with friends, with someone whose knowledge and planning skills I could rely on better than my own. There were hotels, or RVs or rented cabins, maps, penciled notes, directions. This time, it's just me and my backpack, the old, powder blue one I used to wear hunting with my father, or backpacking in summer.

I'm almost-lost. A very nice man, who sits across from me at the station, takes my train ticket (which I cannot read a word of) and returns just in time to tell me, in broken French, that it leaves NOW. I run like hell. The woman at the ticket counter, who spoke enough English to sound disdainful, told me it left thirty minutes from NOW, at 11:58.

An hour ago, I hopped off the tram and said goodbye to Rich, with whom I'd also left half my belongings: shorts, bikini, sunglasses. Things I packed for Portugal's beach weather, and won't need here in Poland. I sat down to an instant vanilla cappuccino, at 5 zed, not really a steal, and scalding hot. An elderly woman next to me chatted with a tattered-looking man, pigeons following at his feet like the bird woman from Disney's Mary Poppins. I don't speak Polish. Their dialogue made perfect sense:

Excuse me, ma'am. I don't mean to intrude. But it's cold...

Oh, not at all, not at all. I don't know how to help you.

It's only that I'm a bit chilled, and a bit hungry.

Well, I can't give you any money, but...

At this she unwinds the scarf from her own neck, handing it to this man from whom even the pigeons have finally moved away, sensing there won't be any crumbs dropping down for them. She smiles and pats his arm, folding the scarf over it. She is not disgusted, nor afraid. He seems more timid now, as if the tactile nature of this gift, still warm from the woman's neck, embarrasses him.

I couldn't. Won't you be cold now?

No, no. Take it. I can buy another.

It's clear that the scarf is not cheap. Perhaps not luxe, but not cheap, a sturdy knit of browns and grays.

Thank you, thank you. I thank you so much.

Now you've something to help fight off the chill.

From nowhere, the station's security guard appears, burly, blonde, and angry. He asks if the woman is being harassed, to which she plainly answers, nie, nie.

Nonetheless, he begins to shout, raising his voice and then his hand, as if to cuff the beggar-man in the ear. The tattered man flinches: He's been through this before. Perhaps last time, he was struck in earnest. Perhaps he chose not to move. Despite the elderly woman's protests, he is dragged away, but doesn't say a word in his own defense, just clings to his handed-down scarf. I can't meet his eyes, nor the woman's. Since I speak no Polish, I could exempt myself here, claim not to understand, ignore this evidence of injustice. Instead, I meet the Polish woman's eyes and frown. Disgraceful, I think she's saying, he wasn't doing anyone any harm.