Dei Profundis Waiting

by Sy Roth

So I hock a loogie,
A gray sticky mass
loosed  in disgust
profundity in name only--
instead a fear projectile.

Somewhere deep  congealed like muddy frozen ice--
Converts into a soul cleansing expectorant.
Perhaps to become a signal to extraterrestrial beings.

New sidewalk amoeba hurled at the earth--
News at 10.

How else to express disgust--
self-flagellation?
attention getting somewhen, but
cat-o-nine tails?
unappetizing.

You haven’t been at all attentive,
could care less about the  others
converted into looped Seinfeld episodes.

I’ll suck the loogie from the floor,
if forgiven their trespasses.

They trusted--
waited,
cheeks pulled in with bated breath
for an answer--
hollow-cheeked faces fear the ocean’s depth,
they see Jonah’s fate played out in
xylophonic rhythms.

Their sentries watch--
Wait,
ready their clarion call.

While I waited.
Dawn broke,
nothing from the earless entity,

time weighted eternities…

while the loogie rests curbside,
Penitential vestige.

Graveled voice
 Silenced.