Poetry

The Soup Line

by

Tommy D. Chaney

I heard a whistle-
a disappearing thing
like an empty bottle falling to the pavement

(Its funny that trains still run these tracks)

The old men
the migrant workers
the young punks

all fresh from one prison or another


we waited there

that is-I waited there with them
never belonging
even among the tramps

we slacked and tottered and leaned in doorways
in the open room where AA meetings
would be held
where the mattresses fall each night
side by side
like so many husbands and wives

and I guess we WERE in this together.

Perpetuating some idea
that the world is wrong
and we're here because of it

the soup and rice as compensation...

the line is like a dirt road to some hell
all the things we were warned about
all the invisible playthings
they're all there

the road signs
have arrows pointing
the other direction
and we know damn well
where we came from...


The old man beside me asked
what I did for a living.
I told him I wrote stories and
stole jobs from the migrant workers
and he laughed
like it were a joke

He too, was a writer, he told me.
Westerns and love stories.


I tried to cut off the conversation by looking out
the window behind us, the line inching closer
to green bowls
frothing with steam,
a cold burn on my spine
seething w/ want....

I needed methadone


Out back, where the trains
rush by
is a pool of dried blood
where two hispanic derelicts
stabbed one another
and died together
because of some vague thing
between love and honor

but none of us understood
the racket.

What better way is there to die
than with the whole world watching
and your last words
as meaningless
as the life you've lived?

After I drank the soup
I went and laid down in that spot
and slept better than the dead men
the police and the junkies

somebody stole my empty wallet

thats how good I slept.