James H Duncan
Ode to Madison Avenue at 6:15 pm
the rich hue of lamppost light
daubing the nighttime sky
with neon honey and saffron, a dome
of incandescence revealing cracked sidewalks
and small dandelions reaching
up toward the moon, blooming under
the electric orange of humanity’s humming addiction,
Edison’s curse and gift, our soul in filament dosage
forming the sharp golden point of anticipation
for a night that is, as of yet, still too far away
for neon to make real
yet we wait, pulse with hope, and ebb along
the eastbound sidewalk in step with the moon
now caught in pine horizons and the rich
hue of lamppost light, we wait
we wait and pulse
with hope
Topo-Chico
dancing in shards of green glass
glinting along the wrinkled rhino
skin of the silent Exxon gas station
somewhere west of Lake George,
I scry your fizzing carbonation in
afternoon sun like some ancient
village enchantress reading bones
and chicken blood, assaying futures
untenable, romances inadvisable, yet
teenage yearning knows no psychic
boundaries and seeks only visions
and indications through the scree of
debris and hormones, broken shards
of glass and Topo-Chico dissipating
into the heat of the afternoon as I
give up, return to the car, the beat-up
old VW Rabbit we have all taken east
on yet another aimless journey of the
heart toward nowhere, and we return
to the highway, assailing and endless,
fever-mad for tomorrow’s illumination