'Shoving her chassis in his face'
Gosh P
-----Original Message-----
From: Poetryetc: poetry and poetics [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On
Behalf Of andrew burke
Sent: 26 March 2008 07:31
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: snap: to be continued ...
Driving under a daylight moon
Through an avenue of she-oaks
Drying their hair in the breeze,
He measures the bassline
With his left foot, the right one
Accelerating out of the corner
And past the statue of
Pope John XXIII in the school's
Sweeping front lawns. Once
Upon a time he was a student
Here when the school was all boys
And parked on the highway. Now
It is co-ed and squeezed between
Graylands Hospital for the Insane
And agistment paddocks for horses.
The Indian Ocean is over the next wave
Of suburban homes – brick and tile,
With trimmed edges and old gums.
He is thinking of hot sand blowing
Across his teenage girlfriend's small breasts
When a garbage truck blocks his way.
Fuck, now he's going to be late.
His writing students have their late night
Ramblings all typed up and ready for him.
He imagines a truck like the one in front
With a huge paper shredder on top
Chewing its way through all the assignments
He has read, marked and handed back
To decades of students. A Merc sports
Speeds across the truck's path so
a claxon horn startles the suburban quiet.
That's something to tell them back
At the depot, about the rich bitch who
Tried to get the dustman's attention by
Shoving her chassis in his face …
He smiles at his own narrative mind:
Cliché cliché cliché. The truck turns
Up a side street and he shouts,
Anchors aweigh, me boys! And plants
His right foot, tapping with his left to
Jazz violin like Paganini never played!
Time and tide wait for no man. When
he pulls into the leaf-littered yard
his students barely look up from
their middle-age flirting. Never
too late, he muses, and grabs his satchel.
... to be continued hopefully ...
--
Andrew
http://hispirits.blogspot.com/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/aburke/
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