30 Minutes From a Day

by Bob Johnson

Sitting in my kitchen
looking out the window.
Having a smoke,
and listening to Van Morrison
as he's asking some girl
not to go to New Orleans.

Outside, across the street,
they're building new apartments.
Trucks and tractors makin' a mess
in the mud that's been
frozen all winter, till now,
while Van Morrison
asks some girl
if he's told her lately
that he loves her,
and that there's no-one
above her.

While across the street
a worker stops
and watches a girl
who's walking her dog.
He's dirty and tired and wet,
maybe a little bit cold,
but for a minute he forgets
and just watches the girl
who's walking her dog,

While Van Morrison's wondering,
where did we go?
Don't ask me,
I don't know...
But whatever happened
to that brown-eyed girl?
Sha-la-la-la. She
took out her dog to shit
in the mud next to the road
where no one
would step on it,
by accident.

And Van Morrison wonders,
how he never
felt the pain,
saying I would be happy
if I didn't read
between the lines,
and that I'd never grow old again.

Maybe I should listen,
but now I'm just watching
the world from my window,
as a man gets out of his car
across the street.
With his hands in his pockets,
he walks around the corner
and out of my sight.
In an out of my life,
forever perhaps,
in three and a half seconds or so.
It's amazing, I think,
and he doesn't know
that someone was watching,
and has stolen forever
those three and a half seconds
out of his life.

But it's ever-present everywhere,
at least that's what
Van Morrison says
about that warm love.
I guess he's right,
but how would I know?
In one ear
and out the other.
I'm not really listening,
I'm just watching the world
outside of my window,
with my eyes closed
in the dark.

While Van Morrison is telling me
he's in heaven,
the worker just stands
there, getting wet,
with his back against the fence,
a cigarette in his mouth,
and wearing a hat that looks stupid
to me.

Behind and above him,
in another kitchen window,
someone else sits and looks
out at the world
from different angle than mine,
through different eyes,
with different thoughts.
Does he see more than I?
Or less? (Yes, Bernie,
he does).

And does it even matter,
to the mother outside,
walking
with her two daughters,
dressed in pink snowsuits,
and stomping their boots
in the mud?
One behind the other,
like dominoes.

And they don't even know
that 30 minutes before,
a worker stood watching
a girl who was walking
her dog,
which carefully chose
that very spot
to leave its mark
in the world,
outside my kitchen window.

Too many people
playing the game,
with dreams in their heads,
and dirt on their shoes,
who can't even tell
the shit from the mud,
and they don't really care,
'cause it looks all the same.

Do they ever wonder
that somewhere
maybe someone is watching
and stealing small moments
of their private lives
from a kitchen window,
while Van Morrison promises
it's gonna be a fantabulous night
for a moondance...