The Dead Pecker Bench

Near the intersection
By the sign Giving the direction
     81 South---71 West
Sits the bench
Dark grey and brown
Under the stoplight
In a shrinking town.

On the bench
Resigned in place
Sits a whittler
with red-necked face,
Blinking
     Through dimmed eyes
As new models and old
With squealing brakes
     And disgusted signs
      Come and go
And reluctantly obey
Red stop and
       Green go.

Tempers show,
Or is it fear
Of having to slow
And having to chance
hearing
An inevitable stirring
Of mankind's trance,
Or spot a dried tear
Among the oldness and
Tobacco stains,
Or smell
     An imagined stench
Where brown stains fell
       By the dead pecker bench.

On the bench this hand grasps
The cold steel of a knife
Where once cruised
Warm sure feelings
     Of life;

The other holds
A twig of a branch
Apart from its roots
Being shaped
By the cold hand-knife
Between the living-dead
Giving form
     To a life.
Condemned and convicted
By self and neighbor
By self and neighbor
To lifeless toil
And meaningless labor
He sits and whittles
Among tobacco spittle
On the dead pecker bench.

And the drivers
Unknowingly doomed
By hopes to succeed deny this need
Commit themselves to the wheel
Of the great motored throb
Seduced by the feel.
Since it throbs Is it not real?
Wheels are poised
Amidst whirls
Of pistons and power
Ready to shower
Burned rubber and dumes
Among the fears
And dried tears
Beside the dead pecker bench.

So small wonder
That the world
Reluctantly obeys
The momentary blink
From Red stop
To Green go
Allowing
     One to think
While struggling
To deny
What could be so:
In the moment
     Between stop and go--
The likely chance
One's self may be seen
Whittling a lifeless dance
On the dead pecker bench.

Boyd Lester
Copyright ©1969

As time passed, highway 81 bypassed, leading to further shrinkage of the town. Circling a bit west of the town, the major income for the town is traffic tickets. Some call it a speed trap -- one mile over the limit, and your pocket book has replaced the dead pecker bench. Somecall it revenge. I think of it as “just” desserts, as is the case in the melodramas of life.