Robert M. Simmons  

from Tracings (Poems 1964-1992)

                The Elmwood/Auburn

It was not Coblenz

with its castles and cobblestones,

but once upon a time

I walked from Dyer to Aborn

and smelled chow mein cooking

in Lukes, the Ming Garden

and half-a-dozen other

Chinese restaurants.

I heard saxophones

from the Celebrity Club

and saw sailors fondling girls

outside the Port Arthur.

I bought tubes of paint

at Block's,

at Dana's books of verse,

candy in the Arcade

with its Doric columns,

bell wire at the City Hall Hardware,

germanium diodes at Edwards'

and Confederate money

at Grant's on Empire.

Sometimes I took the Hope/Tunnel

to Thayer

for tin soldiers from Britain

at the Merry-Go-Round

and desired but could not afford

the coronation coach.

Beneath the marquee of the Majestic

I stood in line

to see the Sands of Iwo Jima.

Coffee cabinets were drunk

at the Outlet soda fountain.

Hamburgers were eaten at the White Tower

and hot weenies

with French fries and cider vinegar

at the New York System.

Men with cigars and felt hats

bought papers from newsstands

and placed bets

in smoky shoeshine parlors.

I waited under the Roman numerals

of Shepard's clock on Westminster

while women in white gloves

opened Art Deco doors to the Tea Room

and a multitude of starlings

perched on baroque facades of office buildings

performed the cacophonous chorus

to their own primal opera.

The night sky was lighted

by green electric flashes

from arms of trackless trolleys

slipping off their cables

as I rode the Elmwood/Auburn

to Roger Williams,

never suspecting

that I would return someday

in an age

when time is measured in nanoseconds

and it would all be gone,

buried Pompeii-like

beneath the ash of wanton change.

                      © 2003 by Robert M. Simmons

Photograph of Shepard's clock on Westminster Street, Providence, Rhode Island

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Subjects: poems about, the passage of time, Providence, RI, poetry, poems

The Elmwood/Auburn