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Dimly lit halls, with mosaic ceilings,
like gravity’s squashed church
that this tunnel still passes through,
but the trains no longer stop.
As your coach comes screeching along,
a headlong rattletrap, piercing the hollow
silence, you still half-expect to see some people
milling around or reading newspapers at the edge
of the platform, but all is a flickering
of shadows as the train surges past.
And yet by instinct, or in reverence,
you start to lift your hand as though to wave,
as if to acknowledge all those people’s lives
you’ve hurtled by, moved heedlessly through
without so much as a glance or gesture.
©2005, Jim Finnegan
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The man who sleeps on old sofas
and chairs left out by driveways on trash day.
The man who consorts with umbrellas
blowing down rain-soaked alleyways.
The man whose mirror is a shop window,
whose handkerchief is a kind of map stained
with dried blood and phlegm.
The man who prays with a Bible
removed from a hotel room, who refers
to his wool overcoat as Brother.
The man who owns the stray dogs,
calling them at dusk with a whistle like a faraway train.
The man who turns around at the sound
of his own footsteps, who dances
with revolving doors. The man who lets the fire
in the barrel read the morning newspapers.
The man who each day misses his stop on the bus,
riding for hours through the suburbs
staring at the houses and trees.
The man whose currency is leaves,
who squanders his sandwich on the overfed ducks
and ungracious geese in the park.
The man who looks like your father,
the man who calls you Son.
© 2005, Jim Finnegan
Jim Finnegan manages the NewPoetry List.
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