22 January 2010

silence

the low steady hum of streetlights on suburban snow dunes
lacks the city's punctuation -
the passing cars
and sirens
dump trucks
and street cleaners -
the passing cars slide by the buzzing houses humming with boiler rooms and refrigerators
the low steady hum of streetlights over the dunes.

over the dunes past the houses
the crackling car radio fades -
the car slides by humming like a suburban streetlight
over the snowdrift sands of the desert hills
riding the gentle curves
the belly drop dips
of the snowdrift sands -
the passing car glides by the solemn joshua trees
like a siren.

(I cower under the snowy overhang
as the windswept newspaper man glides by -
whirring past the boiling buzzing streetlights
abiding the dunes
the skids and dips -
I shrink and dip into the dawn darkness with no escape from
the slow steady hum of streetlights on suburban snow dunes.)