useless art

Outside of the
City of Hartford
Office of Human Relations
The lobby clock repeats
Five zero zero

It speaks softly
With keys clicking into locks
Quiet footfalls glancing off marble
And the distant whisper of
Carousel doors drifting
To a stop

Like the very same doors
To the G. Fox building
No one visits anymore
And the clotted workday
Streets when the sun reaches
Five zero zero

The asphalt cracks
Parched and thirsty
Watching the Gold Building
Tarnish, lamplights
Fall asleep, plastered
Posters sigh and whisper

“Which is the
Sound of the land
Full of the same wind
That is blowing in the
Same bare place”

Next door past the
Stiff Calder sculpture is the
Museum where patrons
Admire dry paint –
They come and they go
Waiting for Michaelangelo

The bus waits for them
Blinking, yawning, tapping
And the cars yawn
Tired eyes stretched wide in
Rapt attention as traffic lights
Dim and flash because

Outside of the
City of Hartford
Office of Human Relations
The lobby clock repeats
Five zero zero

And no one is awake.