Making Haste: Some Dispatches From The Front

a gentle-by-way-of-fragility and tired old man getting shepherded off stage by the Angel of Death and asking “did I do OK?”

and Death, while knowing he’s not the one to be asked, slightly nodding and answering “Sure” in that uncertain way that is often (and is) mistakenly taken as kind-in-its-certainty 

Using your fingers count your ribs, this is the most personal accounting.
 A bruise is an evolving poem that edits away.
Bones have memory but cartilage forgets.
Muscles have no History but Nowness.
You’ll never know all your nerves
And none of your organs will ever know you.  

Looking down the nearly empty platform I see the silhouette shape of a dog, funny to see those perky, almost-bat ears stark against the white tile walls of the underground. A completely still police-dog is something unusual. Obvious kinetic energy stalled as calm potential is something unusual. I wish I could sit and talk with all service dogs. This one is almost telling me something. “An animal’s eyes have the power to speak a great language” or so says Martin Buber. The trouble is translation. The dog pants for a moment and it seems awfully happy but who knows. What is known, though, is what isn’t known, how even its poor master is unawares of the bigger beast they both serve, here, down in one of the bellies of the belly of it. So I walk right past the dog and start climbing stairs.

• A little girl rushes ahead of her babysitter to claim the only open seat in the car and set to the important work of picking at and analyzing a plastic bucket children get for Halloween. Absentmindedly she let’s a tune escape her, “waiiiii emmmmmmm… waiiiii…. seeee… waiii emmm seeee… waiii…. waiii emmm seee ayyyy….” It is the only and the greatest cover of YMCA ever sung. 
• How do you know they’re toursits? (well, various signs, of course). But really after a time you see it straight off, in the body language of exiting and entering and reading the name of every station to themselves along the way.
• Here are some messages conveyd to me from the subway: Sleep is not a perk. Five nights a week. Spies don’t get pink slips. Please. Escape your commute. Do not lean, do not hold. Please. We’re in. We dare you to scream. Like never before.

listen guys a star collapsed in my hand like,
i wasn’t holding a star, that’s fucking
stupid
i’m saying like there was a star INSIDE my hand
and inside there it collapsed so there’s this black hole
in my hand now
great for masturbation, sure. Look but 
please please don’t go staring into my hand
so seriously
i implore you not to stare into the abyss [in my hand]
i mean, the things i’ve done there, in the abyss, in my hand
[see line 7]