THERE'S NOT A LOT OF POETRY IN MY NEIGHBORHOOD
When I can’t fall asleep
I listen to Hoagy Carmichael
singing Stardust over and over
until the wind stops blowing
and the crickets go to sleep
and my black Burmese cat
curls up with me in bed.
It gets as lonely as the inside
of a sarcophagus for me.
The only bit of soulfulness
is a haunting train whistle
in the middle of the night.
The dull thrum of truck traffic
on all the local highways isn’t music
even when syncopated to the rumble
of jet airplanes planes on their way
to Newark Liberty or Teterboro,
dumping their human pee and poo
on top of my pounding migraine,
robbing me of the mystery of my aura,
the only real poetry in town.