Strange Epiphany in the Home Furnishing Aisle

In Walmart store 554
On the edge of the
Northern plains
I was unmindfully
Shopping when suddenly
Two flashlights in one hand
Apprised for just
Three ninety five
I felt keen need
Deep in my heart’s core
For something more
Though less tangible
Some utterly frangible
Token of long sought El Dorado

Wandering down
The home-furnishing aisle
Steadily advancing
Words bouncing off
A distant microwave tower
Honing in closer still
To encounter whom
Or what I knew might yet
Be applied to my flesh
Like an existential balm

I saw Norma Komali
Hanes and Fruit of the Loom
Unbeatable low prices for bleach
And fabric softener besides

Amidst this storehouse
Profusion with sparrows flitting
Swift as linnet’s wing
I might as well be swimming
In twilight so suddenly
I veered off track
One more casualty
To the uncountable
Chasms of impulse
Shopping

Until a plain lettered
Sign recalled
My mind to order
With gentle reminder
That saving money
And living better
Go so well together

Which bathed me
In the light of the
Strict necessity
Of the manifold cartons
Of Quilted Northern
And White Cloud
Stacked and standing
Side by side
Each and every ply
Essential
To wipe the slate clean

Thus amidst the boxed
And stamped precincts
Of every day low prices
Wandering from aisle to aisle
I found sign of the nothing
That could best fill my heart’s
Many resultant exultant desires

Lines Spoken In The 7-Eleven Parking Lot

“All knowledge is local,”

Orion whispers into the wintry night

As he gracefully rises

And cinches his belt,

Preparing to march across

The dome stretched high above

The 7-Eleven parking lot.

“Because, my friend,” he says with a sideways glance,

“Ontogeny recapitulates cosmology.

And besides,

Please bear in mind

A blackbird sees you

Twice as distinctly, while you,

Always struggling to return such favors

With more poetic labors

Will never improve

Upon the blackbird’s view.”




Yet why else write,

I say to myself,

But to celebrate

This night and

This sky

And to commemorate

The words Noble Orion

Has spoken as he

Lets loose

Another shaft

From his star crossed bow,

And I take another sip of scalding decaf.