Tuesday

by

Doug Larson

First, I was dreaming.
Then in my dream
I was listening to a song
"I See All Good People" by Yes.
Then I woke to the clock radio.
It clicked on and,
starting right at the beginning,
played the song.
It was like a premonition;
or a message.
-
Drive to work
Walk in the door
phone wailing like an infant
no time
no time
everybody needs it now
yesterday
and they expect me to deliver
just like Domino's pizza guy
tick tock tick tock
then it's almost one o'clock
I gotta run
U.S. customs at one-thirty
I'll do lunch down and dirty
Chicken McNuggets with Traffic Jam
God damn
dip and drip
bite and drive
slurp a sip
fuck this jive
STOP!
What's up with this truck?
(another message..)
Right lane closed ahead merge left.
Oh. Fuck.
Cranes in the harbor stand like sauropods over the water
waiting for a ship born meal
I creep like a bug over green metal span
cables of pipe as thick as a man
and wire rope as thick as your hand
I can see the twin domes of the coke terminal
their nipple-chutes and D-cup shape
and I dub them
laughing
the Pam Anderson Monument
Arteries of conduit running above
a sea of green white and orange containers
that stretch through mechanical jumble
to the bay
I'm almost there.
Would be, if it weren't for this train.
(again, another message..)
Triethylenetetramine
what the hell is that used for?
car after car of it
Can't be late for my Russian freinds.
Americans understand
the Russians scowl
and ask too many questions.
Launchpad looms over the dock
steel mammoth
fascinating
ungainly.
I see a water truck with the name "Crist" on the side.
(another message?)
I wonder if it's full of holy water
I deliver and receive
and do my salesman-customer bit
then leave
As I drive back
the refinery prickles with flares and flues
like a steam breathing porcupine-
and I'm still hungry.

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NEXT?
Why don't you look at Ten Rhyming Haiku - Set No.3
by: Joyce Hemsley
from: Sunderland, England, UK

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