recycling

On a block defined

by high concept design studios,

law firms and and art dealers.

on the fringe between

the Financial District

Chinatown and Broadway,

a familiar elderly

Chinese couple makes

their noontime rounds.

They wear non-matching

nylon windbreakers

and baseball caps.

She's got floral pattern capris

and he's got off brand khakis,

both of them in bargain shoes.

She fishes in the corner trash bin

with chrome salad tongs

retrieving aluminum cans,

hits a lode of half a case

of Diet Coke. unopened.

She passes the cans to him.

He pops the tabs and

pours the soda in the gutter,

scoots the empties back to her.

She smashes them under

her pink and white

generic trainers and

loads them into a recycled

Nordstroms shopping bag.

The gutter flows

with a sweet stream

of artificial flavor.

Ignored by a set

of young professionals

with their twelve o'clock

double shot espressos.

Five minutes, twelve cans,

sixty cents. Lugging bags

up past the sleek reflections

and chic receptions

across Columbus Avenue

to a hot plate walk-up room.

the garbage artist

Winter wasn't through with March.

The vernal sun at lunch time

at the missile base warmed

the dark bare fields and my face.

Demoted now

from Battery Commander's driver

to garbage separator at the mess hall

separating the edible from the inedible

into a battered garbage can.

I stood outside the doorway

to the kitchen listening to the men inside.

No words distinct enough to know

what anyone was talking about,

Just the mush mouth vowels of Alabama

and the twang of Texas in their voices,

boasting, boisterous, no doubt

full of conquest and bullshit.

Then they tumbled out of the dining hall

bearing their stainless steel trays

and pebbled plastic glasses

and half full mugs of lukewarm Army coffee.

And I began my task:

stacking cups and glasses into dishwasher racks,

scraping the remains of that day's Southern-themed cuisine

off the steel trays sectioned like giant tv dinners.

Clods of mashed potatoes, dotted with black-eyed peas.

A swash of succotash, gray shreds of over done pot roast

slices of white bread stained with pale country gravy

corn kernels floating in pink pools

of melted strawberry ice cream.

It all went in the can,

an ever-changing three dimensional construction

as I pretended to be a culinary Jackson Pollack.

A splay of wilted collard greens accented

with a scattered splash of corn.

The chitlins which had proven to be

less than popular with their pissy scent,

now a shiny beige to bomb with peas.

A magpie perched on the eaves above

screeched a complaint, beseeching me

to toss a crust, some morsel.

At thirteen hundred hours,

I stacked the trays and racks

of cups and glasses on a cart

and wheeled them into the kitchen

where Ahmet and Emre stood at the sinks

and pointed to the spot where they

wished me to leave the cart.

They were friendly now that I shared

the status of Turkish gastworkers.

I was free of duty til Taps would blow.

Free to bask out on the steps

and read my book.

If it hadn't been for Samuel Beckett

I don't think I could have done that gig.

Farmer Herzfeld drove his grumbling tractor

plowing the field beyond the base, 

awakening his sleeping soil.

Waved a leather-gloved hand.

He'd be back after evening chow

to collect the can of slops

to feed his hungry swine.

Girls night out

The drunk girl at the ball park

sits down with a thump

on the sidewalk next to the player's lot.

She's yelling, what? what?

with a smirk.

Like it's the soul of wit.

Claws through her bag

looking for a smoke.

Her girlfriend tries

to hush her before

the ball park cop comes over.

they've already been ejected.

Too late. He stands over her

leaning slightly forward.

You ladies have a problem?

She's still braying,

what? what?and laughing

becauseshe can't decide

whether she’s mad or not.

She lurches up on tiptoes

tries to kiss the cop.

He lets her.

Tastes her liquory breath,

puts his hands on her shoulders,

and turns her around.

She bumps her plump behind

into his equipment,

gives it a shove and a wiggle.

She stumbles forward saying

what? what? and giggles.

You gonna cuff me?

Maybe. Come back later.

Her unlit cigarette

falls out of her mouth

onto the pavement.

Her semi-sober girlfriend

fetches the cig off the ground

lights it, takes a drag,

slips it between

her drunk friend’s lips.

But she can't hold on to it

and it falls out again.

C’mon, let's try the back entrance

if you think you can act straight

for a minute, okay?

Okay. but I need to pee.

Now? Yeah, now.

Go over there, behind those bushes

and try not to go on your shoes.

You wanna help me?

Alright, c’mon. I still want to find

that cute guy in the bleachers.

You can come back for that cop

after the game.

Made in the shade

It was a crappy day.

too hot for sales.

no one on the sunny side

wanted bone and turquoise earrings.

The season was nearly over,

dead til after all the turkey

and pumpkin pie put the millions

in their masses flat on their asses.

One woman pawed

the merchandise

pinned on the black velvet

covered board.

Try it on he said.

looks nice with your eyes he lied.

Not that the necklace didn't.

it was just his standard line.

I'll let you have it for five.

I don't know, she said.

Make it four, he replied.

Okay, I'll take it.

Will you fasten it for me?

Sure, turn around.

She smelled like sandalwood

and oranges.

She felt his breath on the fine hairs
on the back of her neck and shuddered.

His fingers slipped

and the necklace

fell on the sidewalk.

Sorry. sorry.

they exclaimed together.

He picked up the necklace,

held his breath this time.

There. Pointed to a small mirror

mounted on his board.

What do you think?

It's nice, she said without looking

in the mirror and handed him a five.

He pushed her hand away.

No charge today.

For once he told the truth.

It really did match her sightless eyes.

Thanks she said and turned

and tapped her way to the shade.

Dust

They smiled and traded knowing nods

as they discussed how some particular code or brand

dominated their chosen market space.

And I remembered my mother's stories

about living in a grain elevator

when the sand blew from the place

where she was born -Muleshoe Texas-

to Oklahoma City.

And how they crammed five kids,

two changes of clothes,

some pots and pans,

a hammer, a saw and a hoe,

into a drive-away Buick to be delivered

to some doctor out in Pasadena

before they headed over the Grapevine

to Visalia.

And those guys waiting at the corner

for the light to change.

In their scuffed shoes and rumpled slacks,

and their cultivated week-old whiskers

and their hundred thousand dollar debts

had no sense of the difference

between justice and revenge.

And I want to see the oaks

that shaded the bronze doughboy

in the downtown Visalia park

beside the quonset hut tossed up in '42,

when that was the most expedient means

for small town civic buildings.

And it made everybody feel

like they were participating in the war.

And when the war was over

and Mom was riding

on the back of lowslung Harleys

with the guys who had returned

from Okinawa or Palermo

with their souvenirs and G.I. bills,

getting their thrills

on the dusty valley roads.

And the sky glimpsed through the oaks

was warm and glowed with the hope

of post war prosperity and the pink tinge

of sunset washed over the pastures

and the raisin fields, and the bronze soldier

in the park on Main Street.

Walk. The signal lit up in green

counted down from fifteen.

The guys looked up from their phones

and headed for the taco truck

discussing brand and code

and market domination.

tomato sun

Monday eroded into dusk.

The fat tomato sun

bled into a horizon

blurred by the ship smoke

of six southbound freighters.

The rye'd been dry

since the first week of July,

August was past,

and the September sky

was filled with the reek

of tarweed blooms and distant fire.

Samuel gazed through the haze

at the half dozen ice tankers

bearing the last frozen calves

of the Arctic glaciers to the thirsty few

who could afford to drink fossil water

behind the high walls of of their enclaves.

His crew of Ford Mark IV automatons

had harvested his last ton of tomatoes.

(The best thing about machines

is that they are incapable of being bored)

But their indifference to emotion

sometimes seemed more cruel

than the hottest/coldest rage.