Sidewalked

I'm riding on the sidewalk again
and uphill in the hour before
the people in the dell are supposed to be
at and about their various tasks
that may or may not include
checking on the coffee machine and
making sure the punch clock
is still keeping time as well as their watches and
answering phone calls from
the rest of us still stuck on the outside
or with one foot in the door and the other
still in a boot from the last door it kicked in.

And pushing my little horse hard
I am stopped at a crosswalk
where a lampost tried to shake hands
with a brick wall four feet tall,
but was interrupted by an age faced woman
who wanted to keep a bus stop company.

Dismounting and walking the long way
to leave her vigil uninterrupted,
since I was on my way home and
I really don't have to be as on time for bed
as I insisted when I ran out of my job
at the last bell,
she looks straight through my shades and
my sweat and my work soured eyebrows and
cedes a smile
at my efforts to grease her sun ripe morning and
not get hit by logs of cheese buses.

I smiled back and smiled wide
at her amusement,
my inconvenience turned
into a gold star and
I wished for several seconds
upon the pearls in her mouth and
the wealth of time in her eyes
that she could be my mother
before regaining the sidewalk and
the tree shaded way home.

Cops and Robbers

Waiting, all wound and hard squinting, for go
we stood nose to nose in your living room
with everything in common and
guns strapped ready.
Running up through
the years
we split and spin revolvers
turning into rifles turning into magazines and
grenade pins into land mines into
Brownings tucked behind pillbox couches and
heat seeking bullets that can
fly around corners and dodge
rocket powered Samurai swords
with bunker busting warhead tips
on our way through an informal dual
survey of the last 400 years of warfare and
philosophy governing political coopetition
as we take turns animating
our elaborate weapons and
ten times more elaborate deaths
until one of us breaks the symmetry of
progress and starts dieing less and
force fields and laser shields and
autonomous guns begin to steal
the play away from our fun and
we're shooting now from farther away
guessing at positions and movements
with fields of force powerful enough
to kill on contact and
I got you!
I got you!
Spit from your mouth still penetrates
defensive wave plates and networked space lasers
when we're screaming
in boredom turned war turned a living room well askew.
I quit
and we argue
further who out quit who first
until your brother gets home and
sees the couch cushion
lodged between the china cabinet and TV stand
where the TV used to be and
I don't remember knocking that over.
It's time for me to go home isn't it.

You and your allies will be allowed
to win this round and I'll go
before formal charges are drawn, but
tomorrow at lunch
when you're gloating about today
I'll tell you exactly where
I hid my time traveling
force field proof
laser repelling
undetectable
soul seeking nuclear bomb.

City Folks

Your cynicism toward angst
as an appropriate developmental mechanism
wrapped in goggle eyed whisker nipped
newspaper back page humor
is small,
but sometimes,
I agree,
it's the little things
well finger worked and trapping
that keep our insides warm through night.