Aach...ye speak like a poet, but ye punch like one too...

PUNCH LIKE A POET

Saturday, March 05, 2005
  
Poem

MY CORDUROY PANTS

If I'd ever thought to wonder
why ninjas drape themselves
in silent satin instead of corduroy
I'd know the reason why tonight,

first time out in the new pants,
thwock thwocking down the halls
of the psychiatric ward
where I keep the night shift.

The patients hear me coming all night,
zipping, unzipping their dreams
with my washboard walking cadence,
or so my own stride sounds to me--

but back to the ninjas. I like to pretend
I am one--my secret's out. It's a little game
to keep myself awake and sane
these fluorescent institution nights,

but the ninjas would never get away
with it--the corduroy pants, I mean. Imagine
the chirping in the palace shadows,
like the place were full of crickets.

The guards know the sound; they crush
half-smoked cigarettes against the flagstones,
draw their swords. They hear a ninja
passing in the rafters. His pants sing.

He's a wire-winged bird they follow
till he lands and hack him
into fashionable pieces. This
would never work, unless--

and now I'm creeping, soft
as vented air between the crazy people's
doorways, pretending I'm no ordinary
ninja. I'm the one you speak about in whispers

more quiet than my stylish pants,
so deadly it doesn't matter that you hear
me coming. Sure, my legs whistle
when I run, but the sound's the same

as thrown knives, it tears you
out of sleep in time to see me crouching
in the doorway, silhouetted
by bland, fluorescent light.

(7/04-2/05)

# posted by Daniel at 1:27 PM.