Here’s a little poem I wrote ages ago. It was inspired by an episode of Twilight Zone starring Dick York about a man who buys a newspaper with a quarter and when he throws his money down, his quarter stands on end.

I recorded this to go with a moody, avant garde piece by Jürgen Herrmann.

PREMONITION OR DEAD RECKONING

It is the hour your footprints fill
with static and a quarter dropped
from your pocket stands on end.
Realize you have taken the bus one
stop too far and have
disembarked on the
unfamiliar street. There,
on the cross-hairs of your sight
you see yourself sailing into the path
of a moving car. The buildings
on the left explode!
Clench your hands a little
deeper in their pockets and
drop your head into the collar of your coat.
You can’t refuse the vision — this
surprise gift — you might
take it as a warning, or it could be
the hand that strikes the match to the dynamite.
The smiling push into the traffic.

Tempe, Arizona, 1978