Strangers

Bookshop
Little old lady
sitting on the floor
sifting through paperbacks
shifts as I move toward a shelf
don't go, you are interesting
right where you are. 
turns to me and scowls
at the cell phone in my palm
Little does she know
I'm writing a poem 
About her. 

Empire 
Cafe
Four 
O'clock
On a Wednesday
Odds and ends inhabitants
Businessman train wreck
in suit with cell phone
Professor or hopeful
His hat as his table partner
One of them sits behind me 
I do not see him so I cannot make a
guess
So I will say pirate
He is a pirate
And then there was me.
Oh 
Toasted bread nestled in 
Red sauce
Should have got coffee
But that was

Agora at noon
Lazily chiseling at
Ancient Greek translations
Appropriately. 
The jukebox made a mistake so I 
Looked like a radio fool but
Oh well. 
I want to ask the man behind the bar 
what
The inscription in the music box is but
My nerves deter me. 

Burroughs now sits 
with me with his
heroin fits and
cut up heart bleeds
of the future with me.
And then there were three
Raviolis
My last dollar goes
to the waiter

but the caterwauling test of 
Reality
it was not enough nothing was ever 
Enough. 
that was my every 
Day.