A Sliver In The Life Of An Instant Poem by Alexandre Nodopaka

And time is off, and space is away... Anna Akhmatova

The man looks back on his life realizing that now that it's almost over
he's positively amazed by how much he actually accomplished in such
a short span of 78 times 365 days.

Every time he stands before the microwave oven waiting for the minute
to be up he thinks to himself that's one minute less to live but five more
minutes to enjoy his coffee.

God knows how many seconds he whiled away. It's not that he survived
WW II by wallowing most of the beginning of his earliest life in its midst
but he also survived the North African revolution. He doesn't even count

the Watts rioting upheavals. He ducked the Viet Nam war for 6 and
one half years by becoming a military instructor instead of a foot soldier.
He figured it's better to teach how to kill than being killed.

Sort of a variant of Red instead of Dead. He hardly remembers his
one story fall on a cement floor or his three broken ribs with the bones
of his right hand buried deep inside his palm or his fall head first

from a 10 foot ladder toppling over a three-foot railing of an elevated
granite-pavers deck. He glances at the Foreign Affairs magazine
headlines, Stay Ahead of the News and laughs his head off.

He'd rather create his own news. None of that fake baloney of late.
He has 4 dental appointments in January with 2 in February for his heart
and colon. This isn't Watergate these are real plumbing jobs.

More of his art is scheduled to be published in the next 3 months
in five journals. He's booked solid through March. He thinks he better
live till then. Too much to miss if he doesn't. Meanwhile he dreads

mornings. Something in the pit of the stomach churns the moment
his eyes distinguish dawn. He forces himself up. Does his meds and
makes extra coffee to serve later to his legal concubine of 42 years.

And the moment his head starts filling with the trivia of the day
he begins feeling normal until the next morning when the same feelings
recommence but he hopes for a fresh story.