Tuck Shop Poem by Edmundo Farolan

White flesh parading.
Orange students.
The askance of contemplations.
Thoughts creating thoughts like cigarette smoke from tobacco fire culminating in diffused air.

Answers to being and nothingness,
shaved contemplation of reflected selves,
the hot noise of plates and proletariat food in Western, cowboy standards.
The finishingness of these moments writing itself unconsciously.

I allow myself to be released consciously letting these fingers type words,
fathomed words, consequence of ideas and thoughts.
The “shop” crowds itself more – more people, more noise, more sun, more unheard music.
This is not a poet’s inspiration.
It is the reversal of progress, decaying into rottenness.

The waiting minutes are passing half-slowly.
The trembling beats of my heart shake my fingers softly, tenderly.
Rough atmosphere.
There’s always a “once in a while” of tenderness: no clarity, no specific-ness;
just unrecognized and ignored people.

I see disguised biscuit-Judy munching a chocolate bar.
No tenderness; just a warm, Spring Edmonton sun beaming rays through microphoned voices dying in loudness.
And then the aloneness of being human once again.

I wait. Uniformity of faces – why individuality?
Why smile? Why not stay longer?
No interviews please. Just say “Es una lastima”.
Finish off with mature, green endings as in Sartre’s Intimacy.

There are others who swoon unmindful of wet eyes on my neck.
There are those who escape, unseen, pretending.
But for them, there is no rest:
just unconscious poems, unpiped,
smoked, in an afternoon of Spring.