Yellow congregation
Discusses their front lines
Lawn mower arrives

I had this picket fence,
As some men do:
It was white,
And a few feet tall.
It wasn't spectacular
By any means,
But it kept my garden safe -
My garden,
How I miss it so.

I knew my neighbors well,
Some better than others.
I mowed my lawn and watered
The flowers from my garden,
As often as a green thumb would,
And one of those days
I saw a woman
I had never seen before.

She was moving in from California,
Had a house just one  block down.
She asked if she could have
One of my roses,
Which no one had asked before,
So of course I let her in
My picket fence to pick a rose.

We met a few more times
And finally, asked her to come inside.
We had some tea, watched a couple movies
And I enjoyed her company.
And my garden,
I started to forget about it.

One night on our way home,
While she was driving and on the phone
Trying to reply to a text message,
She drove straight into my home
Running over my picket fences.
My garden was dead
And fence that made my home my home
Was gone.

My garden, after so many years,
Was no more, and she had no reason
To visit anymore.
She told me there was another man
That had his own gardener,
That didn't need a green thumb.
She didn't feel the need
To pick flowers anymore.

grey and worn
the lawn chair has dead leaves stuck to it
its one bent arm an expression of pained indifference
mud clings to its feet
and a single vine like a thin snake
wraps its way across its frame seeking the sun
i pull at it to set the chair right
to seat myself
and **** at the breeze from the open field
marvel that a cow stands not five feet away
silently watching my every move with a wary eye
lunching on the grass and ****
but the chair now uprooted from its long held position
seems more than ever a proclamation
of mans intent to be seated here on heavens lawn
clear illustration of the intent that you are supposed to
take this bent greasy seat
sit at your leasuire
in the bountiful sunshine
it is one of a dozen in the field
in this beautiful slice of heaven

the lawn chairs
litter the field like broken teeth
set in a line that wanders across the wilderness growth
each having suffered from years standing in the open field
two almost completely consumed by bushes
one had been tossed into the tree
where time had swallowed it into the bark
this broken and brutalized fence of chairs
these lawn chairs of heaven's field
sit in this beautiful place some would say eyesore
i say artwork of life's randomness...
what party of fools once sat here
dressed no doubt for the occasion
perhaps celebrating
perhaps mourning
then got up from these plastic seats
and left them behind as testament
to that forgotten day...
so i sit in heavens lawn chair
a mute salutation to my unknown compatriots
who painted this pastoral scene
of plastic in a field

When my father was young he mowed lawns for money. He pushed a second-hand spinning blade in the hot Florida sun for spare change.

With dull coins clanging in his pocket and crumpled bills in his palm, my father fought to escape home.

To him, home was synonymous with scary southern suburbia, where late-night television  was replaced with screaming matches and loud fists. Angry eyes with children's cries. Barbecues bombarded with apologetic looks from neighbors. Pretending not to hear shatters and shouts of supposed 'baseball black eyes'.

And so he pushed. Pushed the rusty lawn mower down strangers' yards, pushed away the sniggering snot-nosed kids calling him '****', and pushed at his father's demons, crawling down his spine, whispering that he was no good.

Years later he kept pushing
Pushing
Pushing
Pushing towards whatever came next. Yet no matter how much he pushed, he was still the same boy with the lawn mower. Angry, mad, pushing violently ahead.

The smoke of sanity is inhaled now, as my father's blood-shot eyes try to suppress the angry boy within. The residue of stolen innocence is not left unnoticed. A touch of tone on his once sunburnt neck and the man he has made instantly flushes away, leaving his father's demons. Calmer than before, a dying star, burning bright before collapse.

Like a strong jaw, his father's anger is passed down to him, and I, his son, am now born with this seed of destruction. Smaller than before, but still seething.

Constantly reminded, I sit in a leather chair surrounded by white walls in carefully controlled climate, plastic pen perched on my palm, I push.

I'll keep pushing.

Typing
Writing
Watching the blades of grass
And lawn-mower
How I wish I could mow lawns
But no
My life is much harder
I have to be a writer
Now,
Or at least
Other times,
I don’t know what I am