PDF

blowing


by Tim G. Young


there's an electric fan angled above and behind me and it is blowing
there is piped in music in the grocery store where i work
the moving air from the fan touches my bald head and triggers a silence
in me
not only of noise, speech voice, but also of movement
the piped in music is the pounding piano
of a tiny dancer softly, slowly
elton wrings the melody from the words into the silent but pulsing air
there is memory, golden, pure and stinging like a bee
there is everything and nothing mixed in an anything but lethal cocktail
the moment should ring like this for a lifetime for at least another minute or more
but it all dissolves like the soap bubbles racing down an open drain
if I could only stand this still for as long as i could stand it
for as long as there was time to do nothing but stand there
and feel the tiny dance in my hand
but i can't do that
i can only do so many things and none of them actually seem like the
right thing to do.
if there is a right thing to do. how ridiculous
is a dream stuck on my head like a hat that the wind can not remove
glancing out at the world from my tiny spot
i see only what this world has to offer me
and after a while it is not very much.
it is not even anything i want or need
it is simply the vision i am able to perceive
after a while i forget about the fan and the song has ended
even as the piano remains in my mind.
then i turn around and look the other way
it's familiar and i've been there before but i don't care
since i never quite see exactly what i want to see.
except i do see time captured in a jar
resting for however long something like time may rest
it's a balloon but it is doomed
moving from everything that is dull
to the land where there is nothing but everything sharp.

Endcap