Underneath the Gil Turner
Liquor Store Sign
After Nighthawks by Edward Hopper
Bourbon skies slop
morning boulevard
erections.
Plaza Towers glinting sunrise.
Nighthawk’s blackened pupils bulge,
and wince.
Graphic-wrapped panel trucks
screech Jimi Hendrix cat calls
through a spew of black soot
muffler tar.
A trampy chorus paces
cross-street corridors
of shadowed bushes
and trash cans.
Ten hours before
Nighthawk telephoned a spousal deception
about working overtime
with calculators and ledgers
and a boss screaming orders
plausible disguise for an impending debauch
in a city darkened
like Bald Mountain.
Fractal colours
brake lights neon signs
and advertising placards
escort Nighthawk to his mission.
Non-melodic thumping reverbs
sweaty perfume swaggers
at a club discreetly called The Body Shop.
Discordant concertos exploding cocaine addled brains
delirium collateralized
in the nakedness of dancers
with tedious personalities.
Tiffany offers
her oiled and sparkling breast
and Nighthawk drifts farther
from the quietude
of home-cooked family life.
The chapter might have ended
several hours later
in the glass-tabled penthouse
where card-sharking schemers
appropriated the electric bill funds.
But the 3 A.M. ATM
printed green money
for another run of
Nighthawk’s bad luck.
He drops the bills
picks up the cards
and seizes hard in a glare
of perspiration
and high altitude
nose-bleeds.
Pre-morning
tarmac vapours confound
raw eyes.
Nighthawk seeks
the vehicle left behind,
his battered sedan lost, not stolen
not towed in the night
—just parked in the wrong
dog stained alley.
His skulking silhouette
monkey jumps a cig,
shakes its head
and folds
into the ripped vinyl
driver seat.
Amber car-lights
process like the pilgrims
of Fantasia.
Ave Maria echoes remorse.
In the traffic of the boring,
rested employees drive
to their first-shift time-punch.
Nighthawk guns his engine forward.
When he steals into his own condominium
for ablutions and coffee,
he ponders his angelic spouse
asleep on cotton sheets;
the gut punch reality
of children in the nursery.
Tooth-broke and greasy,
Nighthawk chases the workday.
He throbs like a freight train
on scrappy rails.
Disguising shame with mock efficiency,
he sweats a job of punching numbers;
dozy excess of last night’s gluttony
repeats in columns and rows
of balance sheets.
Through zeal and sweat
work is done:
Perfected, folded and filed
inspiration of presentational success.
At quitting time
the city prepares
nightfall.
Elevators full of happy-hour lightweights
unfold into marble lobbies
revellers spill onto grainy concrete
heading home to fast-food suburbs.
Cars congest the highways like trails
of shimmering swag. Leaving the party behind
for the natives of the night.
Tired and cranky
Nighthawk wanders the variegated streets
of perdition. Craving silence
and reprieve from the din.
At the all American Diner
Nighthawk shares repentance
and another cup of coffee
with fluorescent strangers.
Through stencilled windows
the golden gloaming cityscape
enchants the Nighthawk
like a pair of legs
and a cheap bottle
of hooch.
Edward Hopper “Nighthawks” http://www.artic.edu/aic/collections/artwork/111628
No comments:
Post a Comment