>>> Item number 28243 from WRITERS LOG9404B --- (42 records) ----- <<< Date: Sat, 9 Apr 1994 18:35:02 JST Reply-To: WRITERS Sender: WRITERS From: Mike Barker Subject: SUB: Morning Java An older poem (it's not non-fiction, and probably not prose, so it's probably poetry, right?), recently resurrected from notes. If it needs to be buried again, well, I'll understand. May not agree with everyone... tink -------------------------------------------- Morning Java Copyright 1994 Mike Barker I turn her picture to the wall, face screaming into the paint. So loud it hurts my eyes. I eat a frozen dinner, then turn the oven on. It isn't love that gripes my guts, it's wanting I forgot. I walk across a million and a half lives every working morn, I blink and stare and wait somewhere, but no one knows my name. The crowd of shoulders, hips and farts, parts. Elbows jab and shoes stamp a dance, eyes never touching and hands never crossing and faces faded, gone. Mumbled jumble fills my ears, buries me under taped laughter, broadcasts muttering, guttering, sputtering. I couldn't stand to fall, so instead I'm swimming crowded seas of black news unread, unseen. Morning sunshine butters the bread, but cold coffee takes three spoons of sugar to taste bitter. --------------------------------------------