The opening, the
frame, the summer night, - the solitary car there by the side. It’s an area
that is growing, that will soon enough tear down the old strip plazas. And
maybe that is as it should be, - for even these strip plazas don’t offer much
in the way of poems, romanticism, or anything. They are for the most part only
and simply dirty, derelict, without, lacking, and the lots bumpy, pot-hole
laden, - scarred by this or that, with the ways in and out to small, on too
high of a slope, and with poor sightlines. Nevertheless there is still something,
an inkling, a neat view, - if you look at the night from down the way, from
across the way, from nearly anyway, - at the old Laundromat, open- its door like
an inviting arm, - out to the feral small city and its inhabitants. Each town
has one of these,- nearly each town, and they have a certain character, an
illogical grimy quaintness,- and the machines are lined up like pins, like
metal containers, like strange robots from the future (or the past), like dots
or words in a story. Spin and spin. Tables, chairs, - everything in its place,and
the traffic going past outside,- now up the way,- headlights, sounds, some
wind, a sprinkling of rain now and again. The washers and dryers turn and
tumble, - the sign outside is faded, almost just a white lit up rectangle with
no letters whatsoever. If you were a stranger, an alien, a soul new to the
earth,- I wonder what would be thought of this place,- this minimal environment
that is left open and lit up at night, like some solitary electrical light
house on the edge of a modern village?
----------------------------------------------------------------------
No comments:
Post a Comment