There was never anything about it
in the long grey hall that makes up
the rest home for all those newspapers
no one wants to read anymore.

I didn’t see a word about it on the internet.
I never saw or heard anything on a news channel
anxious for a twelve-step disaster
that didn’t necessarily have a healing process at the end.

The word on the street was no word at all,
and that four-story office building was gone
when I came back to it the next morning.

It was a ghost as small as a friend in a dream
and as large as everything passing overhead.

Oh well.
I’ve been noticing a lot of that going around lately.
The clean slate is starting to show holes in the fabric.

Even chaos has become unreliable.

But it happened.
I was there.

I was there,
and I walked into that building
looking for a restroom.

I guess I got there near to the end
of whatever the hell happened.

Two,
three hundred bedlam veterans acting
as though they had just realized
how crazy they really were.

Not a poor dresser in the bunch.
Everyone looked good as they tore
each other and the rest of the place apart.

I didn’t ask for an explanation,
and I didn’t look for depth or history
in any of those cruel, empty-canvas eyes.

I just watched fingernails chipping bone
and teeth laying beautiful things to waste.

The floor was a mess no one could ever hope to clean up.

No one paid any attention to me,
so I went ahead and found a bathroom
and debated about calling the proper authorities.

It struck me as a waste of time,
so I left the way I came.

Back on the sidewalk,
I felt a little shaken up
and tried to calm myself down
by counting my many blessings.

01/30/2010

Posted on 01/30/2010
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