don't say nothin'

I go to put coins in the meter on South Salina Street and I see Malik. He doesn't see me. Or does he? I put the ticket on the dash. I wave. I don't register with him. I walk up to Malik. No avoiding me, or me him now. "Don't say nothin'" he yells. He repeats it. "Everytime I see you you talk shit. Don't say nothin'." I laugh. He's laughing. We bump fists. He's walking away. "Don't say nothin'." I do say something, something like, "Howya doin'?" His "don't say nothin'" is mildly curious, because last time I saw him, some months ago, I listened to his jive and boom! just like that got him a $25 Subway gift card (which he may've hustled and sold on the street minutes later; don't know; don't care). Far as I can tell his "don't say nothin'" imprecation and incantation is meant as a bulwark to my calling him out on his self-deceptions, a rampart against my wisecracks wedging cracks in the walls of his denial. Whatev. Or because I'm simply as FOS as he is. Er.

parade of prepositions

under through above below about from to at behind across during in into of toward

parade of verbs

evoke surrender leap land embrace trace summon abstain indulge accept taste sound smell feel grow become look remain know ignore swim float type breathe swallow link label remark mark make touch escape send receive listen learn hear inscribe imagine intuit undertake overtake assimilate

atmospherics

not a cloud in the sky not visible at least but there are clouds somewhere anywhere visible or not ready or not not a cloud in the sky as the sun sets ambient light fading night coming night creeping in it ain't dark yet but it's getting there not a cloud in the sky hashtag metaphor not a cloud in the sky so bright the night by the light of the moon swoon June tune boon loon soon not a cloud in the sky bye bye music up and out roll credits

Detroit style

Several yards ahead of me and my dog, they walked. One of them carried a pizza box and ate the remains of a pizza. Little Caesars (ubiquitously missing the apostrophe). "Detroit Style." I imagined an empty pizza box being tossed as litter. Should I preemptively speak against such a vision? I decided against that. Maybe I'd be wrong, and Pizza Eater would not discard the pizza box in the park on this golden spring day. So I walked on, silent. I passed the couple. Then I reversed direction. Sure enough, the couple, including Pizza Eater, walked toward me, no pizza box in hand. I could not resist. "I'll take care of that pizza box for you," I said, looking straight at Pizza Eater. "Appreciate it," was the reply, as if Pizza Eater expected old men to serve as personal valet on litter patrol, or as if Pizza Eater was politely grateful for this correction of a mere oversight, an "accident." "Yeah, sure," I said, tugging against saying a lot more, vehement, sarcastic, righteous, angry, incredulous, instructive, despairing, dangerous. I walked on. I found the evidence, the discarded Little Caesars box. I picked it up, mumbled angrily, and carried the pizza box up the hill. I tossed it in the trash barrel. (I never opened it to confirm if all the slices had been consumed.)

Notice that I have refrained from describing the litter perps. Are there demographics detailing who litters?

Earth Day? Spare me the pious (pie-ous; get it?) cleanups. What about today?

moored, unmoored, more or less

A friend in a missive to me used the word "unmoored." I had to look it up, to make sure the meaning in my mind was moored to the meaning in Merriam-Webster. It is a nautical metaphor summoning images of cables, anchors, ropes, security, stability. Actually, it summons the lack of those images, since those are the moored of unmoored. Well, who isn't unmoored at least some of the time? I'd venture (to continue the nautical narrative) that I've been more unmoored than moored for much of my watery or earthly sojourn. That's not necessarily a bad thing, for being unmoored allows one to drift, even to sail (sails billowing in the cumulus-driven breeze). How else would we find New-found-land, to echo the great poet and priest John Donne?

autodidact

Sometimes, in this white space (though what color, really, exists in the digitalsphere?) I wonder if I am merely speaking to one person who is listening, i.e., myself. And yet if that is so, that is okay too. T.S. Eliot wrote somewhere that a poem is not completed until it is heard or read by someone, even if that "someone" is the poet.