SUBJECT>Re: ** The Port Authority Terminal POSTER>Asher EMAIL> DATE>1111299911 IP_ADDRESS>dbwlib02.weldon.lib.uwo.ca PREVIOUS>85059 NEXT> IMAGE> LINKNAME> LINKURL>

Hi Geoff--

I like monotone voices at times--and this poem strikes me as having lines that are deadpan...which could be good if you had a reason to be dead pan. I don't mean this as a diss.your gift to me, it seems is this dead pan voice that I find utterly engaging. Everything seems to fall on the down beat (I think) or something. I'm in agreement about the ineffectual rhetorical turns. Third strophe is highly ineffectual for me...as its spelling out tropes...I never got passed that point. Anyway, I have a quota of crits to do b/c I posted poems, so I just dropped in. Sorry if none of this is helpful.

Kindest Regards,

AG

At The Port Authority Terminal

: .
: .

: Midnight. Long distance buses have left,
: soon the last interstate follows.
: Jersey is closed for good tonight,
: unless you walk the Hudson River bridge.

: An old man sits on one of few seats
: staring into space. His silence
: one graven in stone not temporary.
: Holds four identical advertisements
: he shuffles exactly like playing cards
: over and over again. He cannot stop

: This is the backstage
: of the chaos and disharmony
: of a reality that says it works.
: No more is necessary

: Beside him a short, fat man sleeps
: improbably bent in half,
: head near bulging belly. How
: can anyone sleep like this?
: He does not snore -- this
: perhaps is the only solution?

: Only later when laughing policemen
: haul in a big Cuban in cuffs,
: will he hide his cards
: and scuttle away. The effect
: of young men's laughter repels him
: exactly as a light shining in his eyes

: The diner-market attracts another man
: who haunts its entrance.
: Bearded, he paces it on sentry duty
: mumbling passionately to himself.
: Perhaps it is the rows on rows of plants
: and flowers inside set him off?

: Perhaps the Columbian chiquitas
: of great beauty and heartlessness
: who run the store eighteen hours a day
: seven days a week, including
: Christmas and Thanksgiving

: Half-past. The last interstate leaves.
: Two old men totally swallowed up
: in private conversation,
: speaking an unknown tongue,
: remove their coffee elsewhere,
: perhaps to another world

: Only cleaners drive vast brushes
: sweep and clean the great floor.
: Police begin to inspect corners
: and toilets, seal the entrances.
: In the market the lights go out

: Unaware that the day past
: was the most important of their lives,
: two sturdy women lock up,
: still chatting away, reciting their pasts,
: presents, and futures, exactly
: as if they were selling flowers
: in the markets of Bogota or Medellin

: .
: .

: Geoff Leone