The Poetry of
Michael G. Khmelnitsky

This poem has appeared in Granville.

It's morning
        and Cappelbaum
   is shaking
   on a bus, downtown

      between a painfully
    fashionable
    youth, and
  a Chinese lady
   with groceries

Cappelbaum winces

it's too early
  for groceries

The shortest distance
between two points
   is the place to be
    on a morning
   like this

Arriving at gate five
to the down town
   Cappelbaum loses his spirit
 and breaks, his city is gone
 in the white tufts of his

grandmother's hair
  hanging dejectedly
to the left right
and roundabout

   the Granville street
 ark
   moving in the
   waters

           Cappelbaum walks
through his favourite
stretch
   pornography
  stores
    and ninety-nine
    cent pizzerias
 turned to staked
   out landmarks

Everything
  runs the course
 on the approach
path to library
 square
   seeing the
   pitiful discord
 of someone's
remote catharsis

    standing between
Lawyers Against War
  and Mothers for Peace
  Cappelbaum feels
   like a fish

out of water
   left on the
   gutting table
 innards aghast
   by the power
of a telephone
call

    Clutching his
   individuality
Cappelbaum walks on
  through the city's
  business district
   in ruins

  among a veiled
disposition of
ignorance
   no shiver
 of hope, in double

edged
  maxims
  and slogans

Cappelbaum,
swayed by the
   crowd
 walks on