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I DISCOVER MY FATE IN THE CITY, AT 12:36 A.M.
By Quentin Smith
I stop and envelop the pillow
With a pillowcase before I begin
The poem—There, it’s smoothly on . . .
And I sit comfortably on the
Bedspread, listening to the radio
Broadcast a concerto.
I am merely going to write
That five years ago I thought
My destiny led among the stars,
But now I see it lies between
The walls of this middle-city room.
I am without direction . . .
True, I have a purpose -- to write
But that only wheels me mile after mile
On the one way-street of time.
And time is Nothing. And Nothing
Is ever happening.
The person overhead is thumping
Along his floor – small explosions
Travel across my ceiling . . .
A hole in the wall emits silence.
I plaster my ear against it
And listen for a clue;
But it sounds the same as the holes
That are punctured through the midnight sky.
Above the opening a cockroach
Is crawling up the wall.
I watch as it disappears
In a large crack in the corner.
Now there is nothing to do.
Yes, yes! I’ll turn up
The radio and go to sleep
And then no more of my
Arrowless thoughts that are like
Industrial smoke in the sky –
Winding, being torn every which way
By the wind. Consciousness of my fate,
Goodbye.
Written 1974
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