Ordinary Person

I often wonder if this apartment

with its worn, chintz curtains,

dusty piano, dog-eared paperbacks

and old TV set is all there is,

if I’m living my life like a deluded

Ufologist, spending his time in

the wasteland, watching Area 51

with a pair of binoculars, hoping

some four-armed creature will

break free and tear the limbs of

the security personnel,

the clock ticks

and I don’t drift with it —

going to places I haven’t

seen or living experiences I’ve

never known. I could give up,

let gravity be my final muse,

allowing the air to part like the

Red Sea while I plummet, but

some anti-gravitational force called

hope or something just as clichéd

keeps me going, despite the bleakness

of the dim bulbs, the discomfort

of the hard cot and the noise

of construction wafting from

the old site where men less

privileged carry on working, oblivious

to the loner on the balcony,

smoking his cigarette and

letting his thoughts form patterns

more intricate than those in

a kaleidoscope, waiting for

the melody of the monsoon.