Stalker

There is indeed a stalker in my dream
He waits among the broccoli sprouts
Waiting for me to pass as an ant today
Today I shall be the smallest ant in the field
I shall carry the pieces of leaves toward
Pyramids
I shall ride in your collar and wonder at your
Life
I shall wonder at the cashier, the driver, the toll
gate worker, so many strangers
You’d think I’d have seen them all by now
So many like me
Engineer with prints, artist with canvas, musician with violin of very
old wood,
So many to the slaughter, so many like me
Walt’s wagons is now the semi-trailer driver
The same staunch strength, he has not changed
So many like me
The press operator stamps parts with earplugs in place
His grandfather the blacksmith is in his hands, in his feet
They are the same among so many
This farmer’s son has wide feet for the plowed earth,
Sits in his cubicle without the need for wide feet
Writes poems he does, this ant in your collar
Shreds leaves
Builds pyramids

***

Ultimate Game of Cards
by David Michael Jackson
The wind in the willows
whispers,
waits not for this poet whose
words are frozen,
and yet as restless
as the limbs which sway
carelessly like
youth which is
lost,
squandered in the ultimate
game of cards.
Aces and eights,
the dead man’s hand.
We are all holding aces and eights
and the wind in the willows
cannot help us.
I deal
a joker here
a queen there.
I am a lonely duece who
cannot sleep so I listen to the wind
in vain waiting for the
whisper.

***