In The Time Before Day, In The Day After Dawn

Moby's Hotel-Ambient in the background.
Yankee Candle Autumn Wreath subterfuging the stink of compost & age.
Unwashed bowls of Manhatten Clam Chowder.
Dim room with 2! lightbulbs now blown.
A stack of bills at thigh-level-- Citibank, Fleet, Best Buy.

Sketchpad with incomplete storyboards,
the pencil lines faint and timid after so much delay.
Piles and piles of paper and old Miltons shopping bags,
squandering the spare bed.
The same bed my brother always threatens to use
(he hasn't slept in it since the night before his wedding
and before that...since we shared the room as kids).

Nothing about this room is substantial.
It's been temp housing for 4 years now...
but it's not a home. Not even a refuge.
It's a place to bunk down
and eat meals
and check E-M
and write checks
and read in the early pre-light on weekends.
But that is all.

No decorations. No habitation. What's here
has been here for so long...
Or else plopped down in symmetric lines
and spaces.
Kept neat. Kept simple.