Flash

[rejectomorph]

The kid who lives in the corner house is welding. Coming up on eight o'clock, the sun is gone. The porch light makes the parked cars gleam. Showers of sparks burst and crackle and the night is filled with flashes that brighten the dark pine trees. Blue light, like the flicker of a giant television that a vast crowd could watch. There's nothing on but the scene of nocturnal trees, a dusty yard where cars are parked, a gaping, empty garage, and the wooden facade of a house where a kid is welding, but I could watch it for hours.

Then sudden darkness falls in mid-fizzle as the overloaded circuits put out the lights and the welding torch. "Damn!" rings out, and laughter from the kid's watching friend. A moment later the power is restored and the torch sparks again, and the crackling and flashing is like small bolts of lightning escaping captivity. The early autumn stars wheel above, but I pay no attention to them. The kid is welding and Orion goes unwatched.




Sunday Verse

A Step Away From Them

by Frank O'Hara

It's my lunch hour, so I go
for a walk among the hum-colored
cabs. First, down the sidewalk
where laborers feed their dirty
glistening torsos sandwiches
and Coca-Cola, with yellow helmets
on. They protect them from falling
bricks, I guess. Then onto the
avenue where skirts are flipping
above heels and blow up over
grates. The sun is hot, but the
cabs stir up the air. I look
at bargains in wristwatches. There
are cats playing in sawdust.
                             On
to Times Square, where the sign
blows smoke over my head, and higher
the waterfall pours lightly. A
Negro stands in a doorway with a
toothpick, languorously agitating.
A blonde chorus girl clicks: he
smiles and rubs his chin. Everything
suddenly honks: it is 12:40 of
a Thursday.
            Neon in daylight is a
great pleasure, as Edwin Denby would
write, as are light bulbs in daylight.
I stop for a cheeseburger at JULIET'S
CORNER. Giulietta Masina, wife of
Federico Fellini, e bell' attrice.
And chocolate malted. A lady in
foxes on such a day puts her poodle
in a cab.
          There are several Puerto
Ricans on the avenue today, which
makes it beautiful and warm. First
Bunny died, then John Latouche,
then Jackson Pollack. But is the
earth as full as life was full, of them?
And one has eaten and one walks,
past the magazines with nudes
and the posters for BULLFIGHT and
the Manhattan Storage Warehouse,
which they'll soon tear down. I
used to think they had the Armory
Show there.
            A glass of papaya juice
and back to work. My heart is in my
pocket, it is Poems by Pierre Reverdy.

(1956)