Crossing

'Inevitable?' said the flutist,
   lips pursuing the apical G;
   a placid finish blowing swirls across the table.
We require, not pipers but a choir,
not Hamelin but Paumanok, -
Distracted, but for a moment.

I buoyantly idle
white caps,
grey gulls,
  forgetful lines
  crossing beneath the centuries idle
the ferry’s chin digging into the shoulders
of costumed crowds
            shuttled through murk, brine,
Where was your future a hundred years hence?

Mr Whitman, I’ve lost your generations of men, women, and oscillating gulls.
I’ve been to Paumanok, your mother’s home, your mall.

A round, another
round, of alms
around whom, with tasseled conscience,
formed a book, forgetful read
never to work
not a crinkle of spine
not the last crisp chapter

A rough noose
a ring, then a coat of arms
a living crowd, I was one of a crowd
in the breathless distance beneath his bridge.

--------------

Written 2011.

New poetry! How. . . odd. This is one of the first to live almost exclusively in the blogger post. I have a draft in an offline file, but it is several revisions behind. This cloud business is a little disconcerting, but highly utilitarian.