Atonal city petered out, a dying machine
dismantled on the Hudson, its heartbeat
a pocket of corrupted arias. Towers grew
glass coral, their panes refracting a trillion
calumnies across the plazas laid down
without purpose. In degraded circuits
abandoned temples had fallen to ruin
like ancient shopping malls. In the husk
of a Starbucks I found a congregation
of obsoletes, masked faces hard as life.
They moved in unison, an eerie disco,
eyes fixed on glitching screens forever
looping desolate commercials, art for
the bewildered. Politics, erectile tissue
paper, vulvic mineral water, Walmart
euthanasia. ‘I am not,’ muttered Einar,
a creature, ‘your Ottoman automaton.’
I said I understood. I bid him farewell
as I left. In my earbuds came a funeral
of brass. The Knee Plays had resumed.
Footnote: 'Einar' and 'The Knee Plays' appear in the title poem of Chapman's first collection, Jazztown (Dublin, Raven Arts Press, 1991). 'Departure' is a follow-up to that poem.
Patrick Chapman's first collection, Jazztown, appeared in 1991. His latest, The Following Year, is published by Salmon in 2024.