No Complaints (a poem)

 

   Things that go bump in the surf
ignore how uncomfortable it was
memories are dimensional lumber
dorsal fins swimming your way in neck deep estuarine water
flowing tides today
a sense of sogginess pervading dreams
a sleeping bag soaking up water
drips down and saturating a field
fire ant mud mounds above the water level
of a flooded field
a place to think about lightening flashes
driving rain and tornado roof-ripping
comparisons to hurricanes
riding a bike through the eye
one with bearings not yet broken
gears immersed in mud and lake puddles
miraculous suspended sediment
rinse off sweat with alligators
sharing the stream
warm and wet  compared to the frozen
places far from crowds
without doorways for overnight
thunderclap symphonies
unlike darkest winters in deep snow

  A sense of sogginess and heat exhaustion
superimposed like a portrait of memory
walking over the trestle
beside a resting line of box cars
disposable as dreaming of tomorrow
prior to awakening today
thousands of cars driving the freeway
one sees today
patching the goat head flattened inner tube
of a bike with a rusty chain
dry  desert contemplative solitude of broke
heat providing the wilderness opportunity
sign up for a Army vacation
mortar rounds for all
a boomerang flies and the Earth quakes
an atomic war won’t happen immediately
with hot engines and metal
racing homeward
to better places with good paint, rocky lawns and global warming

  Mountains of aspiration and hope
snow beautiful and distant
bear ripped up the tent again
duck tape without vigilant drones
not yet a blanket of zero degrees
the visitor of winter darkness in nightfall
lasting longer than city lights on the waterfront
paper plates and dumpster menus lacking health labels
doors frozen shut with tax credits
targeted by public broadcasting
dressing with union retirement planning
union police and social studies sergeants
walking on water half the year
Wall Street hits parade iof pocketbooks

  Complaining of criminals, spiders and bear
spaces where impact, frostbite and starvation
are empty coke cans
and exhaust from idling autos  is the new normal
the chat trained monkey pox
employer lists of numbers to confer unemployment
continuing interstate job insecurity
more out of work than in
returning to the heat lamp and freezer
returning to the destitution
where a legendary buffalo roamed
western movies on location
with decades of social evolution
rusting spikes and running Nikes
jettisoned boom box circuit plates on shoulders
convenient stores, people in uniforms
the last bite, a good night
fueling cars under kleig lights
El Caminos driven to the past.