zumpoems

PSYCHOLOGO

PSYCHOLOGO    
      
       my table is busted
       a sore sight to see
           and the metal-grill chair
       is as comfortable
       as a bed of needles.
a pretty girl in a blue jacket 
           and in maroon cords 
       reads the school paper;
       she is in a trance.
a small audience is watching
       a couple of college students
       playing five-minute chess.
a young women on the other side of the room 
       gazes at me over the rim of a
       white coffee cup.

       i burnt myself this morning
       frying up french toast
           and the pain mingles with everything else
       like  short-wave radio static.
       1.3 GPA
       yells a figure with sideburns
           and a number of people 
       in his group laugh
       until their heads fall off
           and someone has to come 
           and put them back on.
                     
sitting cross-legged on the carpet
           and from a distance
       it all looks like 
       a game of charades,
       long, long hair
           and i find myself stare.

i am thinking of leaving
       PROTECT YOUR LOUNGE ENVIRONMENT
       TAKE THE TIME TO BUS YOUR OWN TRASH
a famous musician enters, 
           but no one recognizes him.
a cloud hangs over, 
           but then again 
       maybe it's just the plumbing.
       my eyesight is shot
       everything in the distance
       all looks the same
           and now it is only my table 
       that is different from the others.

-- zumwalt (1974) 
[reformatted for WordPress display]