A glimpse of the eternal(2003)

I counted the steps today

on my way out of the apartment.
It's not uncommon. Children do it all the time.

When I was little, I was always counting.

I always hope a staircase will have precisely eleven steps.

Eleven is the number that matters,

two lines running ever parallel.

You can't say the word parallel

without evoking the spirit of eleven

--a manifestation of some primordial magic!

In separating things, we are forever linked!

It is not uncommon.

Baseball players and golfers do it. 
Musicians, accountants, actors

and suicide bombers do it.

Maybe even big boss Bush does it,

"seven blinks in the left eye, five on the right

and now I'm ready for a thorough lie-fiesta, yee haw!" 

While we are on common, well understood themes,
Time, that other deceiver, catches me in its voracious jaws

and joins in on the fun; chews my mind like a licorice twig.


I don't wear wrist watches anymore, especially the digital ones.

My mother says to me, "when are you going to join the adult world
and get yourself a watch. Maybe for Christmas, I'll buy you one."


I turn her down. I cannot wear them anymore.
At first it was a playful thing, silly fun, then I became addicted.
"Look", I'd say to my friends and family, "1:01 and 01 seconds".  

A minute later, waiting to pounce on it,

"look now, 1:02 and 01 seconds". The apex of it all,

exhausted in a sweat of obsessive delirium,

"look, look, 1:11 and 11 seconds."

Five ones in a row, my straight-line guides to infinity. 

They mean that I have somehow captured the eternal.

They mean, nothing at all! 


All day I would be trapped like this, in a cage of moments.
When I saw a clock change to 1:23 and 45 seconds,
I thought I was using my time appropriately. 

Sorry mom, wrist watches are forever banished.


Pocket watches I can manage. 
If I have to reach into my pocket to get the watch,
Without really wanting to know the time for practical purposes,
my mind becomes aware of the pending lunacy
and the mania fizzles out with a series of deep breathes.

Something about symmetry, inherent and omnipotent;
Numbers, sidewalk squares and bathroom tiles. They soothe me.


I'm tracking the quiet movement of things,

propelled by a need to know.  I'm aware of the patterns,

keeping control on top of a bubbling planet!

Its not so bad anymore, not that I care much for those terms
That bind us to our fears, the phobias and the disorders.
Yet sometimes I search the bricks on buildings

or count the drops from a leaking faucet,

--at eleven I start all over again, 'again and again, 

--always eleven, eleven, my control and my relief!