Skip to main content

Packin'


Packin’

Yeah,that's right,
I'm packing.
I am.

I'm packing my wallet, my keys, my watch,
the card key to my hotel,
my PDA ,
and my journal with pen in case I get inspired on the subway.

Yeah,
and when I passed you on the Ben Franklin bridge,
then stopped,
I was only checking out to see if I could make out the hours for the Riverside Rink,
lit up,
not thinking you would catch me.

You looked at me as I spun away to follow you down the stairs to Columbus,
and you stopped after 3 steps
and looked at me as I passed you on the left,
my engagement ring 'tinging on the rail.
I'm a guy,
so, by definition, I'm a danger.
So, I don't blame you.
You're a woman,
reading a book as you walk across the bridge,
but you're not sporting headphones,
and you're not afraid to make eye contact with me,
some 6 foot tall,
bulging layers'
long haired,
goatee sportin'
200 pounds of potential menace,
a nightmare that livin' in the city
told you to be on the lookout for.

Yeah,
I'm packing,
I'm packing a string of words and conversations
that I want to direct at you,
for assuming the worst: 

assuming I might sneak up,
throw your arm up high and twist,
reach around
and slap my large hand over your mouth to silence you
as I used my 200 pounds and dragged you somewhere
anywhere that was dark, obscure, lightly trafficked.
Cause I know that fear is healthy,
sometimes,
and fear is what keeps you safe,
but I'm still a little shook up
because I'm afraid of the me you saw.
You saw me as some creepy, bearded,
overweight stranger,
eyes perhaps a bit too narrow,
looking at you a bit too long,
hands clenched in fists,
and not talking on a phone or listening to an iPod.

I'd probably not want me following myself either.
It's enough to make my mind spin in all these different directions,
that it wasn't going before this night.
Yet,
I'm not too sure
I want my mind to go there,
to think that in an alternate universe
instead of thinking about being mugged
beat down,
harassed,
I'm the mugger,
junkie, rapist assailant
who women wait for,
standing on the third step,
in the light so that I can pass and put these 36 steps between us
on a busy street at 8:30
on the day after Valentine's day
in Philadelphia-
the City of Brotherly Love.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Peregrinating the Albuquerque Bosque

  The Map. Overview: Starting in the San Juans in Colorado, the Rio Grande "is the twenty-second longest river in the world and the fourth or fifth longest in North America" ( Texas State Historical Society ).  While the river is characterized by the area it flows through, the river from Elephant Butte Dam to the south to Cochiti Dam in the north is called the Middle Rio Grande.  And in the middle of the middle Rio Grande is the roughly 20 plus miles that flows through Albuquerque.  From an airplane, the Rio Grande is a brown ribbon bordered a green ribbon.  That green ribbon is the Bosque .  I've always been fascinated really exploring an area, getting a sort of overview of an area then drilling down to really get it.  It's led to me hiking the Sandias from end to end and then hiking outlying trails multiple times, biking all the trails in the Cedro Peak area because someone put them on a map, trying different routes to get to ...
3 comments
Read more

Peregrinating the Albuquerque Bosque-the Autumnal Equinox edition

Overview:   In June, around the Summer Solstice, my wife, my dog, and I set out to hike the Albuquerque Bosque from end to end over two days .  It was well over a hundred degrees and after starting later than expected we didn't make it as far the first day as we hoped.  But we did make it. Now, three months later, around the Autumnal Equinox, we set out to do it again.  Our route was slightly different and, with the weather being a lot more pleasant, broke the day into a thirteen mile day and a five mile day:  eighteen total miles from Valle de Oro National Wildlife Refuge to the Alameda Bridge right on the border between Albuquerque and Corrales. The things we wanted to do differently this time were pretty straightforward:  1) don't get lost at the south terminus and get into the bosque sooner, and 2) walk even more on the westside.  So, the route was a follows:  we'd walk on the east side from Valle de Oro to the Rio Bravo Bridge, cro...
3 comments
Read more

Volume 7 & 8 of What if the Beatles never broke up?

 With the commercial success of Band on the Run and Venus and Mars , Paul had all but erased the demon of being "merely" the cute Beatle.  He had his own success, with Wings, and could stand his own compositions up next to what he did in the Beatles.   Wings at the Speed of Sound went to number one on the strength of "Let "Em In" and "Silly Love Songs," which I chose not to include because in this project the critique that lead to its creation may not have been an issue.  Instead, I include his great, "With A Little Luck" that came out in 1978 on   London Town and the great single "Mull of Kyntyre," which is so damn Scottish its easy to see why it was a hit in Great Britain but no where else. I certainly don't agree with the contemporary critics who characterized George Harrison's Thirty Three and 1/3 as his "best release since All Things Must Pass."   In fact I think the earlier releases of Living In The Materi...
Post a Comment
Read more