Tomorrow morning

Miles Davis, Miles Davis! …
Why has been made this trumpet of yours to penetrate up to
the stalest waters of the soul and to move them,
to disturb or to clear them up?
A radio, from somewhere, of the neighborhood,
speaks to the deportees without sleep of city …
A broken egg, on the floor, in the kitchen …
Syd Hebert hasn’t got to wipe it, because he was
collapsed after two bottles of whiskey and six beers
drunk at the foot of the Michigan Bridge, with two comrades.
Now he is lying on the couch, with his head in his hands,
waiting to boil a pot of coffee.
The cat is on the table, in the chamber that might be called
dining room, although it is difficult here to find or to reach
a specific object.

Syd, old boy, you who feel that your youth passes,
that your loves and dreams pass, wake up, old boy,
and find yourself  a job, because the city is almost ready
to throw you in the slimy dumpsters of any passage with no mercy!
This big city knows no mercy for the fallen, like you!
It will let you rot or it will get rid of you if you don’t wake up
and you don’t wash once and for all with the cold water
from the street pump!

Syd, old boy, you who feel that your youth passes
and your life goes, it’s still a hope, you still can
save yourself if you make a cross and drink a pail of cold water,
to wash inside you all the evil and all the despair!
Listen! … Up, on the bridge, the train is passing …
There is the life, there is the purpose of the people who feel
that are living, who feel that they have what to live for! …
From beyond these smoky walls, from beyond these fires
and whispers of the night, tomorrow, at dawn,
the siren will call the people to work.
You also go, maybe you’ll be accepted, are needed in this city
still young arms, like yours, who have not yet reached
the midlife!

Wake up and wait the siren from dawn, Syd Hebert!
Listen up, on the bridge, the train lost in the distance
with people who know the purpose of life! …
But till then, till tomorrow at dawn,
still listen to this blue trumpet, because it sings now
for the last dark night.

Dragos Niculescu
03 09 17