Virus VI

He wore a rust coloured cap. His wool collar was pulled up high to keep away the rain, to protect his neck from the cold. The nothing man stood in line with other nothing men where they waited for food. The shelter fed the viral young, their memories stolen in fever and weakness. All they had was a sense of what once was.

 

There was no spirit inside to hold up his soul

...no spirit to hold him above the sickness and madness

The nothing man moved one step ahead with the other nothing men. He thought he could see inside their heads. See the jangle of nonsensical thoughts. See the rancour of life scolding the deafness of weeping death. 

He saw a human face in the distance...and wondered if she was the fiance he once knew. He wondered if she too was lost in the fever, the weakness, the viral void of a nothing woman. 

He watched her in her kindness. Her white robe  made him sense what once was, what should have been. That time not so long ago, when he grew his hair long, his beard nearly touching their souls.

Like the lonely dancer in Atlantic City, he watched through the lure of a smoky window on Main Street...

 

Virus--Old Men

On a cold November night, under a growling hidden moon, two old men sit on a balcony--on old plastic chairs. With short breathes they smoke long cigarettes and drink beer from cold brown bottles. 

They've been neighbours, but not for long. Since only the last few months when they discovered what they had in common was what they once had, and lost to long nights and cold beers. The wives they divorced and the grown children they hadn't spoken to in years.

With a virus in the land, the residence allowed seniors to socialize outside. A mystery virus that spared the old, that stole the memories of the young. 

Hard drops of rain bounce off the balcony railing and land at the feet of the men. Sometimes a wind gust blows water onto their laps but spares their cigarettes and never touches the bottles of beer.

Through the blackness and the rain they see into the park. Under a bright lamppost they see a young man sitting alone on a bench. His rust coloured cap pulled low, the collar of his coat pulled up high. Every night they see him, but have never spoken of what they believe. That he is a viral young. That he is lost. That he has no memory, only a sense of what was.

One old man takes a deep drag from his cigarette and draws down a large gulp of beer. He says to the other man: "My boy's name is Ralph. Named him after his grandfather. He'd be about forty now. Last I heard he joined the navy. Haven't seen him in years."

"Sure," the other old man replies."I got a son about the same age. Don't know what he does. My daughter, last I heard she lives on the coast. I think she teaches school. I couldn't make it for her wedding day."

The men drink more beer and watch the rain turn into wet snow.

"You think that young man sitting in the park wearing the cap is all alone?" One man asks. "He sits there night after night, and winter is coming."

"Probably got the virus. Doesn't remember nothing. He probably has got lots of people, just can't recall them. They'll probably come out with a cure soon. Wouldn't worry too much about it."

"Yeah, probably."

The two neighbours feel cold and get up from the old plastic chairs. They walk like old men to the warmth of their apartment and turn on the TV. They watch a forgotten movie from when they were young and fall asleep at opposite ends of a black couch...like a long limousine.

 Virus -- In Time

This restless virus inside my soul--tricks me.

My temperature climbs, the delirium so warm, like dying inside a halo

I float in between visions of hot and cold

The sadness that tempers the joy

What comes into view, drifting through the time of spirits

My body floats in heavenly glow, everyone is whole, youth and smiles on angel faces

I keep pace with the mystical wonderment at things I begin to know

I keep pace with the dance of hellish flames 

It burns my sickly skin and tempers my slowing heart

Is this the death I wait for--between sickness and joy?

Floating like a turning mist along the spirits of heaven and hell?

The bliss and the hymn to madness?

 

I awake, the delirium gone. 

My temperature drops like fallen snow,

The air is still, I hear nothing--see the street lights between the darkness

The park bench feels cold--I can't remember my name, 

I pull up my collar

Pull down my rust coloured cap 

I take a breath from the silence

 

 

Virus-- The Prelude

I've got a friend who always sleeps till late morn',

Wipes his eyes when the sun has long risen,

When the morning doves stop cryin'

 

He's past 40, lives with his mom

His mom never with a husband; he without a father's name

Cigarette and coffee stained teeth

Her bony arthritic wrist barely lifts a cast iron pan.

 

When it's the last of the morning doves, 

she sizzles bacon for her only son,

eggs cook in the hot, fallen grease 

A cough and cigarette smoke

The man rises to the shuffle of old kitchen chairs

He sits at the table and eats in dripping silence

He rarely speaks in the late morn'

A cough and cigarette smoke, the mother wants to know her only son.

He says: "I'm going to Atlantic City. Leaving soon. Have to get to the airport."

"But you have no job? Where'd you get the money?"

"Don't worry, I got the cash."

 

The mother saw the faded tattoo on the skin of his arm.

"You don't look so good. You got a fever or something?"

"Nah, nah. I feel fine. When I get back from Atlantic City, we'll be so rich we can forget about this place."

 

He heard the honk of the car horn. Grabbed his luggage and wobbled sick down the apartment stairs.

That night a dove died. He'd never seen it before: A dead morning dove, lifeless at his feet. The music in its wings gone.

 

He got in my car. We drove to the airport with our friends in the back seat. I felt feverish, my memory beginning to fade. For a moment I couldn't recall my name/his name/a fiance's name/a jazzy song about cryin' doves.

Virus Interlude

"I've never seen meaning in a morning mist

Nor meditated to stillness in a northern sky

I've felt the rush of youth, the tumult of wasted time

Always the rancour and drunkenness and ineptitude of escaped years

Dice rolled from this Atlantic City hand, robbed by a midnight darkness

Penniless from what was stolen, what came easy went easily by lust in place of loneliness

I can't recall my fiance's name, nor see her face

The past is all anyone knows, but a virus clipped our memory

A park is where I live in sickness

From hand out plastic bags I eat the left overs from others

I can't call her name, any name...only a sense of an eternal garden and nothingness

Just a constant fever

A weakness from hunger

Like others who host the virus within 

In late November I lay back on winter grass

I stare straight at stars and close my eyes

No Godly vision, only a darkness foretelling a brightness 

Snow covers me, each flake melting on this fevered skin

With open eyes I firstly meditated to a Northern Sky...and saw meaning in a waiting sea."

                                                     --The Nothing Man

 

                                                        

 

 

Virus V

Dawn's sharp edge. The next night seems far away. 

Early rain falls into a cold November drizzle. 

 

Snow had fallen freely in the park. A man in a rust coloured cap had slept. 

 

A homeless virus took away his soul. He waits with other soulless men, who remember only half of what they lived. 

The line moves slowly. A morning angel serves them coffee and bread.

The windows look like they are crying. The bricks sound as if they are breathing sick air. Heavy and labouring in sorrow. The nothing man feels warm. A fever set up in his skin days ago. His lungs cough like the bricks' sick air. The memory is nearly gone. 

 

The delirium before the dying? 

........The cold before the cure?

The line of nothing men move slowly. The angel in the distance pours coffee and hands out warm bread. The man can't recall her distant face. Just as he can't remember his fiancee's name.

But the sensation comes, with each slow step. Like a saxophone solo playing by Coltrane. Like an Alabama dirge. The crescent moon in the sky. 

 

He sees her long flowing hair tied by a white mask. 

 

A memory comes back. 

She wanted to be a nurse, help the homeless. Forgotten men who barely knew their name. Before the disease came. It was Coltrane. 

 

He can hear the music along the crying windows. Hear it past the breathing  bricks.

In the late fall when snow turns to rain. Is it her? He waits in line. Is the fever breaking? Is he starting to feel alright? Soon he will sip coffee, feel warm bread. Maybe he'll know her name.

Virus IV

A man who didn't know his name waited in line

The rain soaked his rust coloured cap. Ran along his old overcoat

When the rain became a drizzle he still felt weakness in his veins

Soon the line would move slowly, 

when the church would feed morning coffee and bread to the viral young

Afflicted by a mystery disease that had come with the summer sun

A fever that never runs down, a cough that pains the lungs

Some had died, 

None could recall their names

Only the sense, the outline of a story that was

The nothing man tried to remember her name

He was to marry her, 

On his birthday she gave him a cap, the autumn colour matched his coat

It kept him warm on homeless nights

Kept him dry from the rain

Slowly the line began to move

Men coughed and dragged their feet, none could remember

An empty bus came

The team wore masks and lifted the sidewalk dying and dead onto the empty seats

Some lain on the floor

He sensed the summer garden, when they were together, when he asked her for her hand

Slowly the line began to move, drizzle came from the rain

The summer garden,  

He coughed, felt weakness

He saw in the distance a young woman in kindness give coffee and bread to nothing men

He wanted to see her face, he wanted to know her name

The man dreamed of the summer garden where he felt oneness and touched nature's hand