Third Floor Walkup
by Odin Roark

Manhattan,
windows everywhere
sending forth a shining
reflective transition,
one always moving,
a lexicon forever re-birthing its language.

I look out,
the city's portals await.
I fling open the paint-caked windows of soul,
the gateway to ether not yet sucked dry,
breathe in the ever-loud worries
drifting skyward,
investing tolerance,
becoming sentences,
no,
mere words searching
maybe to become...

Senses move to the streets.

Dog-walker waits while his four-legged passion
argues hydrant values with a barking friend.

Territories marked,
the walk continues.

Wag.
Pant.
Lick.

Wag.
Pant.
Lick.

The conveyance of loyalty
to anxious leash-gripping big-city loneliness.

The banter of bark and syllabic dialog
drifts upward to my one window,
while the traffic over iron slabs of construction trenches
keep the city’s atonal cadence alive.

Cabs and delivery trucks
rumble their cacophonous presence
over potholes, more iron slabs,
and always the incessant 24/7 car horns,
leaving behind exclamation marks,
quotation marks.
For what?

Minions walk.

Heads droop.

Eyes avert.

Shoes shuffle.

Mouths complain.

Yet…

Gazing at the density of street and sidewalk,
Gives me brief pause.
I’m still alive,
a respite of hope
before memory’s back story
takes center stage.

Oh, that unrelenting backstory…

Bar stools,
dark booths enriching the imbibed aura.
Precious mescal shots of worm-imbued liquid
jettison back and down my mind's gullet
into still further reminders,
the story still reaching,
impounded release.

Acidity starts its rumble mouthward.
I scurry with my mind in tow,
the upright coffin-like toilette my sanctuary.

Rancid past fills the tepid air,
wafting its contribution to history on the walls.
Like a sticky humid day,
dank fog encapsulates the mirror with blur,
the misty prelude to upcoming nightmares.

Stomach swirls and rampages
until I stagger out past the bar stools
into the commas and apostrophes
of half-finished sentences,
the dastardly unresolved premise hanging back,
screaming for me to get home,
where the keyboard awaits.

The goddamn ending lurks in shadows,
held captive by the scythe of fear’s darkness.

Once, three steps at a time.
Now, barely one at a time.

Inside my one-room nemesis of impatience,
I hurriedly close the window,
shutting tight before what little passion remains –
fades.

So…

Nail my ass to the chair.
Thrust my fingers forward.
Marionette another try.
Take a chance.
One more time.
Pull the strings.

You bastard!

Pull!