Last Night

Last night I was out. Having broken my knee and using the walker now, makes for a bit of unwanted attention. All in preparation for the time when this will be me all the time, not just for the fucking knee deal.

The stares, all the stares, you become a spectacle for entertainment and a radar for people's compassion. Yes, it's true that I'm loud and often draw attention to myself. However, I can honestly say that I only like the attention if I have created it and are in control of it. Analyze that if you must.

I was surrounded by good people though, who did, unknowingly, shield me from some of the madness. And we were all very grown up. It was a grown up night out. We all looked nice in clean clothes, smelling good. We had dinner and cocktails, went to see a show, and had late night conversation over gelato. Yes, indeed, it was very grown up.

Some people didn't make it. Man, did they miss out.

I didn't want the night to end. I had dreams of it all, leaving me a little melancholy this morning over coffee. Not wishing to return to the normal humdrum of a Sunday afternoons fleeting, with the stay of Monday Morning and the return to my crap job.

I think I will paint today. Melancholy is good for creativity. Who doesn't know that.

And I give you a poem from my dear friend Ric, who has a book out, the secret book of god. Which I stood in line to get a signed copy of. And, I believe in my heart of hearts, that the whole world should have done the same.

driving an empty street
on a Sunday night
quarter moon
cut white

(faery workthe old women
whisper pulling shawls
tighter round their shoulders)

there is no night more lonely than a Sunday night
how everything possible on Friday afternoon
dissolves . . . gossamer . . . dark blue sky . . .
autumn cold music slow & distant . . .

a few strangers in a bar slumped shoulders
over stools arms curled round drinks as
if bourbon were a frightened child in
need of a shadowing protector

in Mexico tourists make love on a beach
a mother in Asia sells her first daughter
in a small town in Kansas a church
member contemplates suicide

(a dark hand reaches into the sack
fingers the leaves then mumbles
a few syllables & tosses a dust
upon the fire - faces emerge)

& dreaming a poet pushes
tapes into a machine& smiles towardsthe dreamer
shrugs: says:loneliness is a dayfed to the world like unfiltered
prayers or if there are fields on Monday: plow

© 2005 Richard Lance Williams November 6 sundays