November is a Bee complex
where dreams where dreams
waltz like leaves
The dead remind you that they are there
Scratching electrons in electric air
Near
Where
you’re living above your station
And the docs are odd mechanics
Mechanical Turks
Lifting the hoods
Interrupted endlessly
just to pump gas
eyeing the battery
that won’t hold charge
Advising you like Dr. Williams:
“It’s just given up the ghost”
You think back to
the grey tube
in the TV room
of flickering fate
Where pencil mustached Jack Bailey eminence
Leads housewives through laments
asking enthusiastically
How would you
like to be
queen for a day?
And their circumstances are measured
with an applause meter
as they tear up
the meter measures
Under neighbor
Maude’s ironing board
You crawl
But you will wake up
you got to get to your job
Your morbid
preoccupation
Thinking
Seeing
November
And you reach
your destination.
- Jack Vaughan
Comments