“Woke up, fell out of bed,
Dragged a comb across my head,
Found my way downstairs and drank a cup,
And looking up I noticed I was late

Found my coat and grabbed my hat
Made the bus in seconds flat
Found my way upstairs and had a smoke
Somebody spoke and I went into a dream”
____________________________________


Not unlike the day
to unfold in such a way,
too hot,
too blatant,
too miserable,
and far too hassled for
one with refinements like mine;
today I was aiming to observe only,
with little eye-contact, and no platitudes

Silently the
doors opened and I
sashayed through the sensors.
(air-conditioning was on the fritz)
At once everything began
vying for my attention:
Consider me!
Eat me!
Try me!
Buy me!
Boldly resisting, I slipped
through the humid-environs
now dripping me wet with sweat

Notwithstanding the heat,
I opted to something rather unique.
Yes! Something new. It sat well with me.
Instead of looking ‘round, smiling and acting,
I would watch everything from a higher vantage;
A stoic-observer stationed
along the mezzanine;
wouldn’t talk,
wouldn’t listen,
would take in only
what made sense to me,
and, in so doing, shelter myself
from what could void my tenuous peace.
It was good, quite good really,
in theory I thought,
quarantined
this way from
everything around.
Intellectual denial.
Cool-aloofness.
Safety.
Yes!
In certain ways,
separated but still
obtainable, observable,
without baring-the-soul, ever,
or making any part of me susceptible;
observation was healthy, seemed hip, too,
to me well-timed, especially here, where all of
humanity seemed a morbid three-ring circus

Silhouettes drifted on
either side of me, along the
railings, and up and down
the escalator…
Below me,
in open kiosks,
rowdy hawkers catered,
and all around an outpouring
of ‘Twilight Zone’ odors, visuals,
and rackets, intriguing,
argumentative,
rubenesque,
combative,
smarmy
froofy,
floozy
passive
overt
riant
boffo
smelly,
tittering,
cleavage,
butt-cracks,
dominant, hairy,
bald, tattooed, posturing,
scary, pierced, prissy, passive,
flip-flops flopping, soughing dresses,
shuffling sneakers, heels clicking along……..

Faces ran
a far-second
today to intuition, and
nothing I saw entered in as genuine,
as time slogged by in vague shapes and
blurs around me;
human impressions
shuffling roundabout,
sameness and spiritlessness
seeking a perfect purchase; the
clamor of human interaction; blended
with swirling grays of instability;
rufescent angry mutterings;
blueness of melancholy;
fleeceable indecision;
a cacophony of rhythms and echoes
tangled together in a ragged tapestry called life.

{{{SUDDENLY}}}
Something shattered
the humdrum, something
I’d never once imagined shattered
it like a rock through glass; a horror of
pitiful screams rippling
through the air, as staccato bursts
tore savagely into innocence. Shaking
in dread consternation
I saw,
below me,
what appeared as
a burst cancerous cell,
and out of it religious hyenas,
with machineguns, were scurrying into the
building screaming words hatefully unknowable
which no one had power to contain.


“'and upon the earth distress of nations, with perplexity; the sea and the waves roaring; men’s hearts failing them for fear, and for looking after those things which are coming upon the earth: for the powers of Heaven shall be shaken.” Luke 21: 25-26

richard lloyd cederberg

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Quote from the Beatles 'A DAY IN THE LIFE'                                Between the Cracks