In windy conditions.

Listen -
This is for the lonely ones:

I walked down the street smoking a cigarette.
I glanced at the road to watch for cars.
Every time one passed I lifted my hand,
Carefully.
So that it could have been just a chance gesture.
None stopped and I thought,
How strange...
Cars pass, and for them,
Nothing's changed.

As I walked I met friends and other strangers.
We walked together for a while
But nobody said anything anyone
Really cared about.
And we never met anyone
We couldn't live without.
So no one stopped.
We all kept moving.
The cars kept moving.
My cigarette kept burning.
And life went on and the sun shone on
The empty streets,
Peopled only by thin human beings,
Alone, and tired, and,
Of course,
Smoking cigarettes.

And everyone knew exactly where they were going.
This one to Russia,
And that one to France,
All of them to ordered, responsible lives.

I need to turn here,
I explained.
You guys take it easy.
I'll see you after awhile.
So I took off down a side street,
And adjusted my beanie around my ears,
And lit another cigarette.


Someone once told me,
A man who can light a cigarette while walking
May have other talents you are unaware of.
So since that time I have cultivated an ability
To light cigarettes while walking,
Hoping I might discover some talent
That I had been unaware of.

So I got to thinking.
And I thought for awhile,
And walked down the street,
Going nowhere in particular.

It came to me in the city's smog,
The heat,
The cigarette smoke stinging my eyes.
It whispered to me from the corners
Where bums sit in their boxes:

"You don't know what you're missing.
It's like trying to catch a feather
In windy conditions."