Poem for Day 14 of Poetry Month...

                                                STRINGS

 The world began not so very long ago, and it will be over before you can say 

another Jack Daniels on the rocks.

Mostly half a century ago, and a minute or two more, it began. 

I can tell you all about the years.

(And the wind blows so hard now it will surely send the Eucalyptus trees crashing to the ground.  

It’s because the world is turning backwards and we are all caught in the undertow.)

There are tangled strings I trip over, stumble over. 

Strings thumb-tacked to throbbing body parts,

strings that stretch across the city, through neighborhoods of years.

They tear the flesh.

Just a tug, the bleeding slight but nonetheless noticeable.

I can still remember Variety television.  

There are wounds one cannot resist probing.

When you can testify to half a century, everything blurs, 

then comes sharply into focus when you least expect it.

I can tell you about stepping into the darkness as the band fades and the crowd leaves, 

about sliding into crowded booths, where colleagues await, indelible pens in hand, 

and I, the empty page.

Long evenings where he who would become famous charmed us all,

as from behind the bar visibly bored, broad-shouldered bartenders 

pour Frozen Daquiri after Frozen Daquiri, all for me, 

for the long drive home, still in my makeup,

Camera ready.  

Now, on unseasonably warm evenings

soft winds melt frozen brain cells,

and tangle the twisted, fraying strings, picking up speed. 

They tug the homeward bound Michelins off-track,

and send them to repeat old tricks,

like obedient collies on auto-pilot. 

So I go, sniffing out the faded two-story duplexes on North-South running streets. 

The wrinkled roadmap of the mind remembers endless landmarks, 

leads one past windows, around corners, 

to doorways left slightly ajar, from which aromas waft, 

“chef’s offering” for the heavy tippers.

No predicting when it will hit, but most often it comes without warning,

this tangled, tripping twist of strings.  

The moon is only half-full now, like the proverbial glass.

It lights trees that dance over rooftops, beckoning: This way, this way.

Everywhere you look, a memory.  

Some good.  

Some bad.  

Some are tangos - danced, a rose clutched tightly between the teeth.

Some are mindless meanderings, exercises in going nowhere. 

Some, a sultry pas de deux, a jolly two-step.

Some, a solemn death march.

Too long in this town. 

A life time. 

Nothing changes.  

He who.  We who.  Then only I.  The I is the beholder.

Everything is still in the eye of this beholder, 

everything that never was. 

Something for every decade, this town full of tangled, thumb-tacked strings 

tugging at the flesh.

Some of it was good.  

Most of it’s gone.  

What’s wrong with this picture?

All this string, and no knitting needle.

                                                            ©Sally Stevens 2004