Awake
every time he sits at his desk
a question comes to his mind
like a charging bleeding bull
what to write again
what to say to him
what to say to them
what to say to you.
and he thinks to
write about the hubbub
outside his winder window
where dark bony-faced and worry-eyed men
wearing dusty and torn ponchos
stand on street corners
or lean a shoulder on cold walls
or lie on makeshift mattresses in banks’ gates
covered in stiff colored bleached blankets.
and he thinks to write
about the thick darkness
in the hallway and the January draft
swirling around in his feet
like a long-lost ghost.
and he thinks
about the drinks, he shouldn’t have drunk today
about the thoughts, he shouldn’t have thought today
about the words, he shouldn’t have said today.
about the bickering going on
between a couple next door
reminding him of his bickering
that went on with his first love
since then many years wore on
but time and again
the blue-eyed love comes to his dreams
and murmurs things
and when he wakes curled up under the covers
with a pillow in his arms
his heart aches a little.
and he thinks to write
about all these thoughts and the way
they have been messing with his mind lately
keeping him awake.
what is that his woozy mind
don’t understand tonight?
“look out the window
and you might see.”
here they go again
the voices
falling in his face like
a night rain drizzle.
and he asks his mind
where do we go from here?
why does it have to be this way?
but sullen silence it is.
he is hunched over his typewriter
thinking of what to write
thinking of the wondering minds
thinking of the sleepless eyes
thinking of the tears on pillows
listening to the couple next door
bickering on and on
as the time presses on him
from all sides.
now his feet begin to ache
so does his back
his neck
his head.
he stands up slowly
and as he reaches for a hand
to kill the desk light
his gaze gets reeled out
by a book by Ernest Hemingway
Men Without Women, the book says.
is it possible?