Walking through the park
staring at Mother Nature’s art,
enjoying the feeling of
solitude in a crowd.
That beautiful feeling vanishes
when a weirdo walks up to me and
breathes stinking vapours
into my sensitive nostrils.
“I’ll give you a quarter for a cigarette.”
To get rid of him, I offer a
cigarette for free.
“What day is it today?” he asks,
apparently, the cigarette is not enough,
he wants to talk.
“Today is Saturday.”
“I had a few hundred bucks at the beginning of the week…
lent it to my friends…they haven’t paid me back.”
Bullshit thinks I as I stare at his heavily nicotine-stained fingers,
“You should acquire more reliable friends,” I say aloud,
“Damn right! One of my friends tried to commit suicide last night.”
“That’s too bad.”
“Didn’t work though. He’s always been a lousy shot.”
He laughs hideously and ambles into the crowd
and I sit wondering why
I attract weirdos at the Festival of Friends.
A band is playing, and I’m on the grass,
(by myself goddammit)
letting the environment soak into my soul,
then a kid sits beside me,
and I can smell his unclean breath,
there’s room elsewhere but he chooses to sit
directly beside me…
of course, he strikes up a conversation.
“Nice looking girl in the band.”
“Yeah.”
I try not to encourage him
but my attempt fails, and he continues:
“That guy’s camera looks expensive….” blah, blah, blah,
I miss the rest of the information he imparts
which is technical and means nothing to me.
I remain silent.
“It’s supposed to rain tonight.”
I remain silent, hoping he’ll leave me.
It doesn’t work.
“My name is Ivan, but my friends call me Steve.”
I mumble something and he continues:
“My friend attempted suicide last night…but he failed.”
I stare intensely at him with the word “conspiracy”
reverberating inside my head.
This must be a plot to decrease my sanity.
I remain silent, waiting for the rest to follow:
“…he’s always been a lousy shot.”
He laughs hideously and ambles into the crowd
and I sit confused and despairing, wondering why
I attract weirdos at the Festival of Friends.
I conversed with sleep to cancel my turmoil,
a volcanic eruption in my head hummed
hideously, disappeared into the realm
of my unconscious state…a face flashed
before my eyes, grinning excruciatingly, painfully.
I asked the soul inside the face to help me out…
but he ambled away into the crowd of dreams.
I turned off the dream, and slept uneasily,
the pounding of new dreams infiltrated my slumber,
I stared into an abyss of shit stinking
the peace out of my head as a man dressed to
symbolize God continually repeated:
“You are their mirror.
You are their mirror.”
I woke with a start and asked a stranger for a cigarette,
I offered him a quarter, he offered me a butt for free,
I told him: “My friend attempted suicide last night…
but he failed.”
I ambled away laughing hideously
shouting through my stinking breath:
“He’s always been a lousy shot!”
1985