One of those men who can be a car salesman or a tourist from Syracuse or a hired assassin.
— John D. MacDonald
You would not recognize me.
Mine is the face which blooms in
The dank mirrors of washrooms
As you grope for the light switch.
My eyes have the expression
Of the cold eyes of statues
Watching their pigeons return
From the feed you have scattered,
And I stand on my corner
With the same marble patience.
If I move at all, it is
At the same pace precisely
As the shade of the awning
Under which I stand waiting
And with whose blackness it seems
I am already blended.
I speak seldom, and always
In a murmur as quiet
As that of crowds which surround
The victims of accidents.
Shall I confess who I am?
My name is all names, or none.
I am the used-car salesman,
The tourist from Syracuse,
The hired assassin, waiting.
I will stand here forever
Like one who has missed his bus —
Familiar, anonymous —
On my usual corner,
The corner at which you turn
To approach that place where now
You must not hope to arrive.
– Donald Justice
Postscript:
There’s something about this poem that makes me think of a sunlit afternoon darkening ominously. There are things that we know about life – bad things happen, death is around the corner – that we don’t acknowledge to ourselves as we go about our mundane lives. Mundane – there’s a word that means, literally, ‘typical, of this world’.
Most of us only know of spies and international intriuge through books and movies, and yet there are people out there who do this in their real lives – that’s their mundane, everyday thing.
More about Donald Justice here and here.
Tagged: death, Donald Justice, politics, unsettling
High Hopes
Beyond the horizon of the place we lived when we were young,
In a world of magnets and miracles,
Our thoughts strayed constantly and without boundary.
The ringing of the division bell had begun
Along the long road and on down to the causeway.
Do they still live there by the cut?
There was a ragged band that followed in our footsteps
Running before time took our dreams away,
Leaving the myriad small creatures trying to tie us to the ground
To a life consumed by slow decay.
The grass was greener
The light was brighter
With friends surrounded
The nights of wonder
Looking beyond the embers of bridges glowing behind us
To a glimpse of how green it was on the other side.
Steps taken forwards but sleepwalking back again,
Dragged by the force of some inner tide.
At a higher altitude with flag unfurled
We reached the dizzy heights of that dreamed up world.
Encumbered forever by desire and ambition,
There’s a hunger still unsatisfied.
Our weary eyes still stray to the horizon.
Our weary eyes still stray to the horizon,
Though down this road we’ve been so many times.
The grass was greener
The light was brighter
The taste was sweeter
The nights of wonder
With friends surrounded
The dawn mist glowing
The water flowing
The endless river
Forever and ever.
– Pink Floyd
Tagged: ageing, imagery, Pink Floyd, social commentary, song lyrics