World-Class Nobody
by Christopher Shane Billiot
Alone in a stonebrick city highrise.
Alone in these longest days & nights,
overheated by the after-shock of that high-degree
oversized whistling one-eyed Banshie.
Hundred mile wide power outages,
so thorough in mayhem, say:
God doesn't miss an inch of where he's needed most.
Lake Ponchartrain takes my beloved
historical city of cuisine for siege.
Fumes of wasted life and petroleum sheens
rise up to replace the scents of
powdered sugar sprinkled
fried banjuets,
chicory hinted coffee,
and those sweet pecan pralines.
Slavery's descendants starve
and gather together on higher-dryer land.
Not to cheer or celebrate, hand in hand.
But to sing the blues.
I ask what else is new?
Radio's active essence dies down, for good.
Eerie city silence surrounds,
except for my indigo soul crying out
to no-one who'll hear.
Mere bread crumbs, I scrounge.
Red-blood-cells are dwindling.
Lack of vital signs brings into question
which of my fingers should be spared,
(as a boy once had when trapped
in a discarded junk-yard freezer, for a week).
Black coffee colored water's all around me.
But I know better, so, I sip my sweat.
Failure to see past the density
of my country's ignorance,
has drained all hope out of my heart.
Alone is the only thing I have
in common with millions.
Some say, and I have believed,
alone is a safer place.
Though I am growing,
and beginning to learn the latter.
Loneliness has never been
a choice chosen by me.
Misery loves me more.
Limited assistance, for many, arrives too late
& shares its plate with the ailing
Indonesians, Afghanis, Asians,
Iraqis and hypothetical Martians.
I argue, Misery loves me more!
I was born a refugee,
but they never heard me crying.
Someday before too late I may,
but red-blood-cells dwindle,
and I forget to forgive.
I awake, startled by tunnels of light.
Soft white footsteps stir dust
on my wind tattered roof.
The worried face of a Nubian nurse
shines flashlight hazel eyes,
smiling onto what's left of my lifeless body.
She finds me, fingers all intact.
Looks around the place for knives.
Searches my meager subsistence
for an atom worth splitting.
I can not bring myself to move, while
she breaks misery's heart to pieces.
She's chancing to build my calamity
back up into Anew.
We become, with a touch,
the only miracle
of electric light for miles.
volume 9(6)
This poem is copyright © September 2005,
Christopher Shane Billiot, all rights reserved.
Find more poems by Christopher Shane Billiot.
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