new poem: Comb In the Airport Parking Lot

comb in the airport parking lot

Comb in the Airport Parking Lot
by Job Conger
–
There is a comb in the airport parking lot:
black plastic, a little bit flexible I’m sure
no handle,
not a short comb
a right-back-pocket-of-your-jeans comb.
It’s a long, keep-it-in-your-
inside-left-pocket-of-your-sport coat comb,
teeth close together on one half
and about maybe three millimeters further apart
on the other half, but nothing fancy.
Its black is not so black,
dark grayish, really.
Drivers don’t see it.
You almost have to be
out of your car even notice it.
The comb shows wear,
not from grooming hair
but from tires running over it,
the well-known bane of the existence
of every comb that calls a parking lot
“habitat.”
A comb, was probably on the front seat,
slid off and out
when a sleek, poised,
well-cologned 38 year old systems analyst,
a skyfarer,
swung out the driver side of his Lexus
and absent-mindedly deposited it
into the space between the parking lot’s yellow lines
that haven’t seen fresh paint since Kennedy was president;
a parking space close to the office where passengers go
to meet their charter pilots before
departing Springfield for business or pleasure
in Dayton or DC or Boise.
He’ll probably never miss it,
probably forget he even had it.
–
Such trivialities
find appropriate destinies
in airport parking lots,
until they are discovered by solefarers,
carried lightly
between thumb and index finger
to the waste basket by the front door
and given a proper Christian burial.
–
But I shall not sympathize,
shall not sully thumb and finger with it,
shall not touch it,
and I suppose in a month or so
a strong wind will blow it away,
beyond my concern.
–
I shall empathize.
There are times when I feel
like a comb in the airport parking lot.
–
written September 21, 2011 at 10:30 am
================================

–
Every day I come and go from my AeroKnow Museum at Abraham Lincoln Capital Airport, north of Abraham Lincoln Springfield, Illinois, a short 10 minutes from my home on Abraham Lincoln Vine Street, I see the comb; have for the past several weeks.
–
It occupied my mind.
–
I photographed it two weeks ago. As the Poetry at Robbie’s Night approached (Robbie’s Restaurant on Adams Street between Fifth and Sixth Street every third Wednesday, sponsored by Springfield Poets & Writers) approached, it seemed a natural subject for a new poem. I wrote the poem at work starting Monday and finished it Wednesday. I did a lot of paring with this poem. Key to the process with many poems I’ve written is to write all you have to say about the subject and then, with a critical eye, peel away  everything that gets in the way of what I NEED to say to make the poem succeed.
–
I have seen people who talk five minutes before reading a two-minute poem and then talk another three minutes stepping away from the microphone at poetry readings. Any poem that needs a five-minute introduction is not a poem; it is a means to jabber behind a microphone. You have to have a poem to get to the microphone so you write your poem and describe the entrails before revealing the body. This is silly. Talking about the poem is terrific, explaining it is terrific. But the poem is the statue; the rest is the pedestal on which it rests. The poem is not the pedestal.
–
The comb is still in the airport parking lot.
–
Live long . . . . . and proper.