I lift my gaze from the page.
Looking through the dragon plant,
and the miniature fig tree,
past the rain spattered window pane.
Out into the dusk at mid-day.
The sky is black, the wind chilling,
the rain relentless, daylight scarce.
And just as I think its bad
Mother Nature flashes at my eyes
and unleashes the roaring sound
of a building collapsing,
multiplied a thousand times.
The street lamps fight their hardest
but barely touch the insipid gloom.
I love Nature.
But sometimes, days like today,
make me question that relationship.
So I return my gaze to the page
and write.


© Pagan Paul (21/11/16)

he sits on the curb
all twelve years of him,
waiting to be a teen

when he'll have to pay
adult price for a movie ticket
or bus pass

he usually has no cash
for either; but wishing and waiting
are art forms to him

he's learned to move
the brush of time slowly on life's palette
while he watches others whizzing by

on their store-bought skateboards
and Huffy ten speed bikes, while he has
only one gear for two feet

which now are clad in Keds
from the thrift store, and planted
firmly on the cement

by the drain gutter,  where he
last saw his favorite possession, a Super Ball,
get ****** into the sewer

when the storm ended, he yanked
off the manhole cover and crawled into
the dark, but the ball was gone forever

when he came back into the street,
yet lamenting his round loss, more boys
on bikes buzzed by

their circles safely spinning
on asphalt, far from the gutter and curb where
he once again sat--wishing, waiting

Baltimore, 1965

he sees one on the branch of his oak,
the other on his picket fence

eight decades he's heard names
of these creatures

one that makes sad songs (though not
a song bird...)

the other known by its color
(not red robin...)

he opens the door and walks
toward them

as if removing distance will erase years
which purloined their names

they fly off, so many eons ahead of his species
which now lives long enough to forget its past

a breed of ape which worships words, and
dreads the loss of them

the mourning dove and cardinal need no
symbols to know to flee this beast

the mere sight of him evokes the
wisdom of the ages in them

wings flap, currents abide, they glide to
another spot to roost

while the old man curses himself for
unknowing their names--cursing and cursed
it seems, are not part of what is forgotten