The Wasteland Suicides – Part 3

		3.

	Red light shines brightly in the already bright day
As cars stop and drivers never get to go.
Everyone moves but not themselves, a rocking chair world
Of people in motion but going nowhere.
Even the roads they travel on are corrupted, useless.
Concrete still-lifes of means that never reach their ends.
The end does justify the means that's why no one cares
That the homeless go hungry and veterans lie dying in their hospital beds.
Somebody else will take care of it, it's somebody else's problem.
Give me a home where the bicyclists roam
And people choose their own way to go.

Five miles into a breezy afternoon
I stopped my bike
and asked the sun
"Where are you going?
 Why do you never stop?"
And the sun laughed back
"Where are you going?
 Why do you stop?
 Can you keep up with me?"

You are my moon
	my stars
	my sun-lit sky
			We know what makes 'em
			pregnant
				ZAP!

I love you...
Such a brief while
man stays (death do us part)
his only defense
    only response
to the cycle of nature
   the cycle of life
...procreation...children...


        In the glare of the red light throbbing
After the sun has set and gone his way
I, Oedipus, no longer Rex, blinded but unable to keep
From sight come among the houses, remembering
What it was to love and be loved and the price you pay:
Love is a dry torrent.  Do not believe.
In the glare of the red light
The biology teacher gathers his papers and puts them away
Not needing them at home, not today
And his wife, the woman he married
For her Christian values and you have to marry someone
To cook and to clean and to love you forever.
I, Oedipus, no longer Rex, no longer King, and never teacher
Traded sight for illicit joy; this man traded nothing
And has nothing.
He thought once, she would love him
Especially after the children, two daughters and a son
Now he's satisfied if she leaves him alone.
No words heard between them:  Who needs them?
Both understand:  To break the silence is to admit we were wrong.
He huddles in a chair reading "The Rise and Fall of the Roman Empire"
While she fixes dinner and mixes the hemlock in with her stew.
In bed, he turns his face to the wall,
Hoping the questing clammy corpse's hand
Will discover him also dead and be satisfied.
(And I Oedipus would be blinded again
Lose my kingdom, my children, and all my fame
To hold my mother, mother of my children, in my arms
And love.)
She drops her hand after a furtive caress
And sleeps the sleep of the self-satisfied.

	He watches the numbers on the clock radio change
Thinks about having an affair with one of the students
In his biology classes:  Pre-med, and bright as sunlight.
Man fell for woman's caress,
How could he do less?

	No one thinks we should be together
This is the truth:
I find him my photo-negative
the reverse image of every thing I am
but still the same picture
the soul mate
the filler of my empty spaces
the love I never thought could be.
A man with a hold on his dream
and a mountain bike
with tires built to go anywhere
		to make our own roads.

	Always setting
	and always
	rising
	you come to me
	i sing
	the body electric
				ooh la la
	staring out
	the window
	at Shari's
	the sun setting
	behind us
				la la la
	desire and
	memory

	in the light of the setting sun
	you came together with me
	and I love you entirely
	ecstasy is truth, you know

	Going to bed with him
	is attractive
	because he'd be sympathetic
	caring
	and excellent at sex

	All is right
	done under the sun.
				ooh la la lala

Then I saw a man with his arms stretched out to heaven
Holding the sun back with the power of his god

	Standing still
	Ring around the rosy
	Pocket full of posies
	We all fall
	The sun stood still