Modern Times (In Three Sections) Poem by Daniel Brick

I
I am often lost. So far, I always find myself,
but someday... Well, somedays when I am
walking, further lost in my thoughts,
oblivious to the landscape, I suddenly stop
thinking and look out into the world
spread about me. I look long and hard, but
see no familiar landmark, remember nothing
seen on my passage to this spot, at this time.
People smirk: a stationary man can only be
a lost soul, of no account, a useless man.
There are others like me, standing alone,
obfuscated, astonished, forlorn, but we
do not speak to each other. Humiliation
blocks that impulse. I pretend to be blind
to the world, it is a point of pride: I turn
inward and drop into inactivity. Like a scarecrow
dumped in a shed, a beast chased from its lair,
a citizen who never votes.

Further walking is useless, I won't close
this circle that way. I stand very still,
like the others who were arrested before me,
without gesture or expression. Is this any way to live?

II

My dilemma stems from the behavior of
my house, recent behavior I can neither
explain nor condone. This won't surprise you:
my house, like so many others in these modern
times, wanders the city in search of its ideal
location. It pulls up its foundations, folds
the basement against the first floor, opens wide
all doors and windows, and lumbers down streets,
scattering cars and pedestrians to the side.

I found my house settled in an abandoned
parking lot, now redesignated an Urban Park.
Wayward houses cluster at the far end of these
parks, where the terrain is treeless, grassless,
flat, worn down. They lack all sense of design or
appearance, just plant their foundations in dirt,
and let their weight settle them, usually
with a marked tilt to one side. Scavengers quickly
strip the house of window glass, frames, light
fixtures, furniture, carpets. The house doesn't
resist, it is happy to be free, and call itself
- what else? - h-o-m-e.

III

A compassionate cop found me, turning in
circles, dizzy from my circuits around
an imagined center, a MODERN TIMES dervish
intent on his ritual response. He drove me
to an empty lot once occupied by my house
with me in it. He shook my hand and wished me
luck. 'I've been through this, too, brother, '
he said and drove off. Of course, memories
flooded my thoughts, and I stood exposed to
autumn showers for two days, oblivious to
seasonal change that infected my body and
roiled my mind...

But memories could not sustain me, and the
oceanic waves of thought subsided into
a weary flow. Wet autumn was replaced
by dry autumn, and the dust layers rose up
and choked the city. Dust is the sign and
signifier of the city's slow-motion collapse.
Dust is dust, and someday I am dust, and
I accept my final fate. But for the present
moment, I am flesh and bone, blood and sinew,
and I require my human happiness. So here I stand,
in an empty lot, alternately soaked by rain or
buffeted by dust, starting the dervish dance of a homeless man.