Parking Spaces

Parking Spaces, (c)2013 John Meisel, Pathmark grocery in Wayne, NJ

(set to the cadence of shopping cart wheels in a parking lot)

I

Cup clopping mindlessly, tossed in the wind

Light posts with baskets to guard them from rocks

A lone car is parked in a spot at the edge of a wind-dusted,

Asphalted lawn of a lot

An airplane flies roaringly, wings motionless

Over a bird far below in the sky, its curved wings cupping the air

II

Heavily humid

The sky presses down, smothering noises with blankets of wet

Even my vision seems darkened by clouds

Or dusted with gusto by fine wind-borne sand

The heart of the town is a dull background pulse

That comes into hearing while sitting in thought

In exhaustion and day’s recollection

Sitting and solving the brick sidewalk maze

Following grass walls with unfocused eyes

Come to a rest at the red brick road’s end

III

He’s squinting again with neck leaning still

Motionless rest for hours on end. Windows face forwards

‘Tween newly leaf’d trees and a quiet room nearly unfurnished

The light coming in

White one o’clock greyness

Dust-covered window glass two on the wall

Floorboards creak tunefully. Peeling wallpaper, its petals fold gracefully, almost dried

A curious breeze pokes through a small space under the frame

And teases the curtains, white and unwary

Awhile

IV

Present today is a fellow names Carl, coming from up Valley Road

“Nothing to do so I thought I’d stop by, push me some carts for a while.”

“I talk to myself when I’m working, you know.”

And I do the same, sometimes even a song

Two Pepsi colas in mist-covered cans, one by the window to finish in time

A flash of gold wrapper, some butts for m’boy

who’s hot in this weather from working so hard.

Take off your jacket, your navy blue warmth

Tell me of sister, or parents long gone.

V

It’s morning it’s daytime, the sun’s up again

Like birds looking down as they’re watching the ground

Circling round for a time

These birds don’t have wings, they don’t soar in the wind

Scraping brown heels on a sandpaper sidewalk

Wearing the soul down to dirt

A file of bushes trembles and shimmers

Waiting in line waiting in line

Here in this valley of merchant machines

This island consumer consumed by his

Very own hand

Stopped in the aisle, she’s looking for that

(that store built of boards from her boat)

Which her eyes stare right through

VI

Droning a deep-throated note

A note in extension

Steady, unfaltering until now. It stops

I stop in midstep, my attention arrested on account of jaywalking

Jaywalking with the direction fo air

Like the litter of levity, floating and turning

Little lost pieces of leftovers

Anonymous gymnasts expressing their sentiments of gaiety to an

Asphalt audience in meditation as superlative grasses gaze wispily

In a Djini dream

VII

Until the light does out

Waved out by a non-plussed power supply

Merely gone off to muse in another room for the moment

I waved the gnat away (for the 18th or 25th time)

“I gave at the hospital. Leave me be.” And looked at a corner patch of pink flowers.

No thoughts stemmed from this either.

“Where do they all go is the question as I see it,” humming some tune in a minor key

Where do they all go. Would it help to build a community for a group that consists

Of people who could be alone in Time’s Square on New Year’s Eve?