filled with lousy
poetry means
I am a curmud-
geon with the ob-
jective of object-
ive opinions and
I win,
walking down 6th
Street trying not
to be too humble.
Tarrying over bro-
ken glass to make
another shot with
the underdog,
stop in my tracks
dead in the middle
of Natoma Alley my
peripheral has caught
a new mural on the
outside of the corner
of the closed shop
which I had — only just
pottered by the place
that has been shut-
tered for the entire
year I have resided
in The Alder House,
which stands just
on the other side
of Natoma. The
shop with windows
that have been shut-
tered with what ap-
pears to be a large
roll or two of butcher
paper which makes it
impossible to see in-
side. The paper has
two words written in
bold black, as if by an
extra large black mar-
ker: CHABAD CHABAD.
The new mural, on the
south wall of the closed
shop, right at the corner
of 6th and Natoma, fac-
ing the alley next to the
apartment building which
has been my home for a
year this month, is a de-
piction of a street sign
noting the imaginary 6-
way intersection of 6th,
Natoma and Chabad. Just
above the sign, there is a
dove that has obviously
just taken flight from
its perch upon the sign.
I snap a quick shot
of the new mural
while whatever
lies near the back
of my head just
inside the skull
(because I can lit-
erally feel it) fum-
bles around with
the memory that
I have stopped at
least twice before
at this closed store
during daylight hours
to snap a shot or two
of a portion of the
two words that have
for so long advertised
the name of a place
that is seemingly
always coming
soon with my
underdog cell-
phone. Always
catching just
the portion
of one of
the reiter-
ated words:
BAD.
[For a couple
of months I
had kept in-
tending to
pluck one of
these photos
of BAD from
my collection
of random e-
ephemera (for
whatever mun-
dane reason) and
post it to Instagram
with the caption:
BECAUSE I’M...]
This night in which I
snap the new and col-
orful 2-dimensional
street sign over which
a dove is taking flight
opposes the times I
stopped to snap BAD,
half of each of the
words I see most
every day at least
once, which glare
from the other side
of the windows cov-
ered over with paper.
Tonight is quiet and
serene. And night al-
ways makes the arrival
at home something more
of an event than when
you get back during the
day. At this corner, on
times when the sun is
out and loud, there
are almost always
some four to eight
men, some standing,
others sitting on chairs
they have brought from
wherever, chattering
and laughing as if in
competition with each
other over decibel level
or audacity of tale, per-
haps. Most often, one
or two of the guys are
hawking a few tawdry-
looking wares.
On this night, however,
just as it usually is at
this hour, it is quiet,
only dimly lit, and, as
I recall (it doesn’t
have to be correctly;
it’s just the way I
remember it) I was
caught up in this
fantastical, nostal-
gic, hopeful dream.
