Congestion (A Poem)

Coke bottles jamming the conveyor belt
Marbles running down the grooves
Forced through the opening
One by one.

Let me breathe.

Guard rails fly past in a blurring parade
Windows watch our passing in silent distain
Concrete swirls curve around the bay
And disappear into the murky gray.
Transportation blurs
Speckle the landscape
All too real the vision in the distance
Someone’s bottle falls off the track
And shatters across the road.

Crossing the bay through a waterproof intestine
Glazed ceramic tiles reflect red flames of caution
Cattle moving through the gates
Sweat and stench reek from our enameled cases

Don’t breathe.

Emerging from the deep
Butter melting in a pan
Spreading out in all directions
Thousands of minds
Boxes of crackerjack
But where’s the prize?
Buried in the sand and shells
Hiding in the holes with the sand crabs
Soaking in the vitamin D.

Stately towers and rustic backdrops
Paper mache remnants of automatic emissions
Point the way for the mobile chessmen
They reach for the sanctuary of the clouds, screaming

Let us breathe.

The monopoly board goes on and on
The boat and the shoe and the hat
Circle endlessly on the third planet
Never just an observer
Always a participant.
Time does not wait
For the March Hare, for Cinderella
For Tyrannosaurus Rex
Not even to let you hide from reality and cry

Let me breathe.

Claudia/2009