One Afternoon (after Paul Eluard)
In the café with the blue awning
a waitress stands knee deep in the middle ground.
Her smile seems to unmask any persona,
transforming teachers into card sharps, thieves into nurses.
Lightning flashes outside, and all the tarts
rattle in their glassed-in cases.
At a moment like this one should be honest
Yet everyone just stares at their food.
A baby speaks up with bubble-words.
A sweaty cook smokes by the oven,
sausage ignored on the grill. The waitress
sits at the bar and ponders her desires
and the prices she's willingly paid for them
as she tallies everyone's bill.
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Tim Brennan is a poet, painter, and woodworker living in New Paltz, NY. And from the author: “I am interested in working with everyday observations and the abstraction of language, using
images from outside sources (reading, collage, visual input, ambient speech, etc.)
and from the meditative interior. And enjoy trying to provoke humor.”
Lightwood 