Read the news or don’t read the news. There’s panic in the air. Shootings, shootings, shootings. On the streets. In malls, movies, churches.
Little dead things in the garage. Tiny pink with bulging blue eyes like little dots of shame, or is it horror. Better be dead than alive in these times, in this garage in this basement in this house.
Took a walk the other day along Lake Street… million dollar condos going up everywhere. Pretty people handsome people sexy people. Prada Armani Versace Karan Miu Miu Notre Milan Paris Amsterdam New York Brooklyn Berkeley chic. Young tattooed pierced ringleted dyed botoxed coiffed pedicured all with interesting weird shoes. Mismatched colors are in. All plugged in listening to news or music walking down dirty dusty littered streets. Cranes construction chain link fences. Cars cars cars everywhere going nowhere.
Meet me at the corner of that building she said. “Is it safe?” All I remembered is it was far west and industrial. Concrete, narrow sidewalks, cars whizzing by, not stopping for anyone. Black tinted windows. They don’t even care if they kill you. Watch it walking down that street!
“Are you kidding?” she said. There are condos, cafes, restaurants, people everywhere. West side chic pushing more and more west.
Off I went walking down the chic million dollar condo streets. Cranes and dust and chain link fences. Starbuck cups and wrappers, Dunkin Donut boxes, mustard streaked wax papers, toilet paper, paper towels, plastic bags, doggy poo bags, coke bottles, rusty blades…..tiny trees people forgot to water, shriveled rose bushes coughing up tiny parched roses, dried out shrubs that looked like my father’s ashes…..
But yes, pretty people everywhere walking talking listening to nothing. Prada Milan Paris Amsterdam on their backs and bottoms and feet. Now and then I smelled Chanel or Angel or Hermes perfumes wafting in the air with garbage and poo.
Panic Panic Panic in the streets. I hear the flowers screaming I hear the trees and shrubs and very dirt in the flower boxes moaning…….
Then dinner at the restaurant with the young and the rich and chic. Flies buzzing around our table and all the wilted roses in the vase. The loud shrieking voices of the tables all around us besotted with Taj Mahals…… the flowers in the window boxes were all wilted. They didn’t water the flowers and waited for the rain instead. Everyone did. All around my town the flowers and trees and shrubs waited and waited and waited for water… from anyone. Wilting and dying and drying. Then, finally it rained. A little.
God does not water your flowers people, or your trees, or your shrubs. He is busy now. Take up your pitchers and bowls and your hoses and water the earth, its trees and shrubs and flowers…… clean the streets, the sidewalks, the roads, and alleys, and underground tunnels of your cities…. your dusty buildings and cars …..
Then, you can put on your Prada Armani Versace and Miu Miu and strut around on your clean and shiny streets……
whennothingworks 