by Tom Savage
A peekaboo at pain
Makes an instant virgin
Of the street where you live
Where pavement meets sound
In a round of air.
Take its picture
Before it starts screaming again
Or after. The crowd
At the rafters of outside
Are ready and steady
For the now that resumes
And promises to resolve
Into the usual silence
Some later day or night.
Up and down the steps
Of space
And back again
We wander over the keys
Of the piano
And they respond,
The art of the look of desperation
Requires perspiration,
Determination,
And a luck of law.
The monk with a bunk
At a seaside of Hell
Spills his name in gestures
And rests only short moments
In between.
Meet the spirit of life
And lay down your strife
Somehow. Does
It let go of you?
If the answer is “no”
Embrace it
And lace it into your hands.
Written at a showing of this video edited by Charles Steiner, 1994.
