Poem: Night Number Unknown (2007.04.30)

2007.04.30: Night Number Unknown

a starless night
2 sitters sit upon
windowsills – voices a drift
in the space between buildings
sirens like stones in the
river roar of the 24,
the 580, 880, - 980 connector
Its constant-
The night, the city humm, voices,
amalgamations of individual events, times,
beings-
Individuals
But its constant, the humm, the noise
Sandpaper from fifty feet
No Grit.
Even the stones are expected and accepted
As part of the night's sheet.
A murder, a rape, a birth
The pornographic screams of a she-faker
Down on 14th and MLK
Its all normal nothingness at a distance
But up close in the hand of a poet
These grains sand and polish the balsa wood
project of this city – or reduce it to wood dust.