16 January 2005

10 North Beaver Street (by Bill Diskin)

10 North Beaver Street

I step out the door
Into the street
side-stepping the old man sitting
On the curb

Dark clouds dot the fall sky
Puzzle pieces floating
Over rooftops of reclaimed store fronts

“How will you get the adults to write poetry?”
They had asked upstairs,
Fluorescent light flooding the room
White

I reach for my car keys
Stepping out of the headlight path
of the city bus rolling by
blowing my pantlegs with its dusty,
noisy bus-wind

Crouching into my car,
I sneak a look back at the curb
man, sitting
“PLEASE HELP” scribbled politely on his cardboard
And in his eyes

“Is that poetry?” I wonder,
Turning left below lingering bus smoke
clinging to the air above the street,
Another puzzle piece
in a city of questions.


Bill Diskin
9 November, 2004
(still working on this one…)