Tattered In The Wind

In this realm of chessboards
and fresh books
smelling of coffee and minds
and neweness

Manythings can happen
And yet go unnoticed.

The man with the suede Irish cap
carefully packs away his metal ruler.
He moves quickly to ensure
that no one wonders what he has been measuring.

The homeless man shuffles out.
His panhandling this morning
ensured him a good cup
and a soft chair until noon
when the influx of people
begin to stare.

The well-dressed woman wearing sunglasses indoors
wavers,
leaning against a wall.

Wind rattles the old windows in their frames,
The ghosts of
dead unpublished authors
determined to break in.

My cold tea
grows warm.
The phone rings
and is never answered.

Time
Slips
Seductively
Past.

The voices come and go,
Timbre high,
Timbre low.

The windows squeak and bang
Author spirits wanting coffee
with a touch of fame.

A painter chews
on a sandwich and a book,
His split-kneed, splattered pants
Belying intellectual pursuits.

Flip-flops contradict pea coats.

An elderly man loses himself
in a magazine.

A woman has second thoughts
on a book about
Machu Picchu.

The painter gets the hiccups.

A bottle of Coke makes a break for it,
Rolling across the broad planks of the floor
Towards the old loading dock doors,
But is thwarted,
Captured,
And replaced upon the shelf
For some unsuspecting future customer.

Someone whistles the theme to ‘Gilligan’s Island’,
off-key and distractedly.

A black-leather clad woman
Sports a Starry Night water bottle.

The man in the pork-pie hat
and well-trimmed beard
casts suspicious glances
over his shoulders.

New people arrive
burbling about the wind
As departees
Bundle up
Chins down
Before exiting.

It goes on and on.
In and out.
Come and go.

Always with the wind,
Moaning, sighing,
In the background.