Below the Fold

Routine Procedures

The lines of sight and verbal trajectories and doing their best to align their sensibilities -- coming to terms and focusing on the real problem at hand. Sullen, windblown and distracted by silent voices and faceless confidants. Taps on the shoulder that serve only to distract. Doing away with formalities and revealing your neutrality with an intensely disinterested look in your eyes.

Fielding the usual collection of naysaying tendencies. Just a knee-jerk reaction so popular with the hangers on -- sure has a way of knocking you from your high chair though. If you deserved a word, then one would find a way of reaching you.

Bitter arrivals. Walking down streets and through doorways. Finding out if you have any reason at all for making your random appearance. Your sullen evening wandering routine. Getting old. Forgoing the array of invitations that await your every turn.

The sensitives are making their own findings tonight. Below the surface of propriety. At the edge of sobriety. How kind of you to note the effort. Remember way back when?...we were rich little children...we held hands and counted to ten...then we started all over again. Long before our doorsteps were covered with draft cards and we had to part ways -- some of us went away and some of us stayed behind to hold down the home front. I can still remember your face from the train window. And your tears seemed to indicate that you knew how it would all come to an end.

So many years ago. So many years since.

Did you save all the letters I sent you. I saved all the ones you sent to me. Even though I knew they'd cut me whenever I stumbled upon them. In the attic. In the basement. Folded in hardcover books. Tucked inside picture frames.

Can you make it out from the corner of your perception -- gotta be tuned in...you could miss it if your weren't picking up that special random frequency...the one way down at the end of the dial. Stuffing the ballot boxes. Hoping for approval. To proceed with this grand charade. This open call masquerade ball. Hard to know who you're talking to. With the faces all looking so transitory. Not to mention those odd expressions.

Pairing off as the hour grows late. Showing their true colors... betraying their allegiance to safe numbers. Even odds. Nothing your basic pollster couldn't account for. Saving yourself for the popular vote. Well, that could explain the presence of the fingered authority figures hanging out over at the culture factory. Manufacturing and packaging their own synthetic versions of artistic beauty and romantic endeavor.

All things in moderation. But don't lose hope. They're taking suggestions down at the playground. It might be worth your time to make an appearance. If nothing else, you can always drop by the swing set and see if it's still standing.

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