"fouled" poems
You do the math and I'll provide the irrationals,
as I tend to cling to panic in the asymmetry of life.
In this Twenty-First century women still suffer
from laws streaming out of councils of men.
These are not self-stabbing heroines,
they do not ask the heavy deluge of derision.
They are faced with laws stemming from an abbatoir,
from men who wish to usurp the birthright.
Men who have become strangers to their own mothers,
men whose ***** dispense a fouled milk,
men who deserve an **** ultrasound colonoscopy.
So, I beg you to balance the inequality of the equation,
gather our sisters in this non-Euclidean space:
this is one we solve by inspection!
May 5, 2012
May 5, 2012 at 10:57 PM UTC
Earth withers, air died
Water fouled, while fire lost might
Nowhere from, origin
Voyage to, end lasting sin
Save the princess, king orders
Must destroy the demon lord, he ponders
Built the rainbow bridge, aid from
Collecting the pillars of light, facing storm
Dragon, a symbol of bravery
Quest, a virtuous journey
Demons, his sword would kiss
Dragon Warrior, amazingly he is
|AB|
May 17, 2015
May 17, 2015 at 3:51 AM UTC
Like a goose flying tail,
Or alone waiting mail;
Like a fly on the strand,
Or initials in sand.
Never give up.
You're fouled on a fair play
With the crowd in your face;
You shoot from the blocks
To a false started race.
Never give up.
You're stranded on the shoulder
With a tire gone flat;
Or walking a dark stretch
With a load on your back.
Never give up.
You're lying in a sitting room
With a match and a spoon;
Staring at a bare wall
When your skin starts to crawl.
Never give up.
You'll get your lead;
The strand may break;
The tide will turn;
You've lost the taste.
The spare's in the trunk,
Friends lighten your load.
Never give up.
There's light down the road.
Mar 12, 2014
Mar 12, 2014 at 2:16 PM UTC
A desolate shore,
The sinister seduction of the Moon,
The menace of the irreclaimable Sea.
Flaunting, ****** and grim,
From cloud to cloud along her beat,
Leering her battered and inveterate leer,
She signals where he prowls in the dark alone,
Her horrible old man,
Mumbling old oaths and warming
His villainous old bones with villainous talk--
The secrets of their grisly housekeeping
Since they went out upon the pad
In the first twilight of self-conscious Time:
Growling, hideous and hoarse,
Tales of unnumbered Ships,
Goodly and strong, Companions of the Advance,
In some vile alley of the night
Waylaid and bludgeoned--
Dead.
Deep cellared in primeval ooze,
Ruined, dishonoured, spoiled,
They lie where the lean water-worm
Crawls free of their secrets, and their broken sides
Bulge with the slime of life. Thus they abide,
Thus fouled and desecrate,
The summons of the Trumpet, and the while
These Twain, their murderers,
Unravined, imperturbable, unsubdued,
Hang at the heels of their children--She aloft
As in the shining streets,
He as in ambush at some accomplice door.
The stalwart Ships,
The beautiful and bold adventurers!
Stationed out yonder in the isle,
The tall Policeman,
Flashing his bull's-eye, as he peers
About him in the ancient vacancy,
Tells them this way is safety--this way home.
4.2k
Heaven
. . . Have Mercy . . .
Rest, rest, rest, for ye be none,
pitiful Fallen One.
Quivering bows flow over grave strings
bassoons and basset horns ring
pounding timpani’s announce:
Master of the Holy Choir
- - Renounced - -
Vain, fluttering heart
sublimely denounced, scorned;
fouled, ousted:
Horned.
Wailing strings, bassoons,
basset horns, thundering kettle drums
lift angelic voices to glorious requiem.
Pleas for Eternal Light’s remain
in wings refrain.
Heavenly Chorus' cradle to sustain,
mercy to soften
disdain.
The Holy Oracle contests --
to no avail.
Siblings’ choir protests.
Beauty beyond measure,
Angel of pure, Divine tessitura,
Absolution for Thee?
Foretellers of dark illusion
open Holy Scriptures to reveal
the drone of Eternal Damnation:
trumpets of ill
drag Thee to Hell.
Deep, ephemeral rhythms
exalt dancing strings,
seal destinies -- Kiss The Almighty King.
Glory be unto His Majestic Reign,
Will Supreme,
Tremendous,
Powerful, Holy Being.
Scribes record,
recite this dreadful day,
condemn Thee: Fallen One.
trumpets lament, strings mock
this unholy, forbidden way.
Bows flutter -- a memoir
of redemption.
Cries of confusion
dissipate
into muffled choirs,
murmurings
of deliverance.
Delicate chants
beg for forgiveness;
a Soul’s salvation, fusion.
To no avail!
Turbulent strings strike the Holy Duel
in wrath, writhing hatred,
majestic wings tumble --
twist to wrenched ******
Death devours, Birth becomes
the Fallen One.
Angelic dissolution --
distraught, agonized Ethereal,
Eternally beautify
these ghostly, trembling
winds, strings, harpsichord, drums.
Voices of brotherhood remembered,
cushion Angel’s earthly descent.
Breathe into infantile genius
heavenly symphonies
to sweeten a life
trapped, scorned,
condemned,
mourned
Love of God: Amadé
Jul 17, 2012
Jul 17, 2012 at 11:02 AM UTC
Behind the house with the fragmented windows
and the corroded pipes
and the cobwebs and ages under the stairs,
she buried herself
under the earth and grime
until the roots contained her decayed soul
and encased around her brittle scarred limbs.
Until the dirt crept down her windpipes,
until her tarnished lungs were suffused
with ashes and dirt.
Until roots replaced her veins and
smothered her cracked ribcage.
Behind the house with the fragmented windows,
under the grass and gravel,
that was rougher than
her mother’s dispirited retorts,
where she once capered and skipped, and never thought
would become her grave.
By the ethereal creatures she played with
in her younger and more susceptible years.
Dig up her bones but leave her soul.
Who would ever want cruel contaminated beauty
as a periphery for such a fouled soul?
It was when she stopped falling asleep on the way home,
when her nightlight ceased to make her feel safe,
when a lover’s unlawful kisses replaced her family’s amity,
when a lover’s lethal passion parted her lethal loneliness,
when home became a person and not a place,
was when she buried herself
behind the house with the fragmented windows.
Jun 3, 2014
Jun 3, 2014 at 9:22 AM UTC
Some one has destroyed
the robin’s nest
and stolen the eggs
Jane said
she leaned
into the hedgerow
beneath the streamlet
and parted the branches
her voice choked
as her fingers poked
about the damaged nest
you stood watching
behind her
over her shoulder
watching her fingers move
who’d do such a thing?
you asked
all gone
not an egg left
she said
in saddened tone
you leaned near her
smelt lavender water
she wore
her dark hair
pinned back
with metal grips
why destroy?
she said
why steal?
you sensed her sadness
felt her ache
and how
it would feel
she withdrew her hands
and wiped them
on her dull grey dress
and looked along the lane
and back at you again
who would do such things?
you asked
she looked at the hedgerow
that now concealed
the damaged nest
and said
father says
such are humankind
that seek and take
and leave all fouled
and lost and leave
to nature or to God
to mend and count
the cost
I saw the nest and eggs
last time we came
you said
the beauty of the eggs
and nest made neat
Jane walked on
along the lane
and you walked
beside her
her dull grey dress
swaying as he walked
her hand reached out
for yours
her fingers slim
unpainted nails
her thumb rubbed
against your hand’s skin
the sky
watercolour blue
with puffs of white
just the countryside
sans eggs and nest
and Jane and you.
Dec 26, 2012
Dec 26, 2012 at 4:05 PM UTC
"Ah, did you once see Shelley plain?" -- Browning.
"Shelley? Oh, yes, I saw him often then,"
The old man said. A dry smile creased his face
With many wrinkles. "That's a great poem, now!
That one of Browning's! Shelley? Shelley plain?
The time that I remember best is this --
A thin mire crept along the rutted ways,
And all the trees were harried by cold rain
That drove a moment fiercely and then ceased,
Falling so slow it hung like a grey mist
Over the school. The walks were like blurred glass.
The buildings reeked with vapor, black and harsh
Against the deepening darkness of the sky;
And each lamp was a hazy yellow moon,
Filling the space about with golden motes,
And making all things larger than they were.
One yellow halo hung above a door,
That gave on a black passage. Round about
Struggled a howling crowd of boys, pell-mell,
Pushing and jostling like a stormy sea,
With shouting faces, turned a pasty white
By the strange light, for foam. They all had clods,
Or slimy ***** of mud. A few gripped stones.
And there, his back against the battered door,
His pile of books scattered about his feet,
Stood Shelley while two others held him fast,
And the clods beat upon him. 'Shelley! Shelley!'
The high shouts rang through all the corridors,
'Shelley! Mad Shelley! Come along and help!'
And all the crowd dug madly at the earth,
Scratching and clawing at the streaming mud,
And fouled each other and themselves. And still
Shelley stood up. His eyes were like a flame
Set in some white, still room; for all his face
Was white, a whiteness like no human color,
But white and dreadful as consuming fire.
His hands shook now and then, like slender cords
Which bear too heavy weights. He did not speak.
So I saw Shelley plain."
"And you?" I said.
"I? I threw straighter than the most of them,
And had firm clods. I hit him -- well, at least
Thrice in the face. He made good sport that night."
1.7k
when we remember
what the times have been
that made us into what
and who
we are today
we travel deep into our past
to hear our mother’s voice
our father’s not so friendly gripes
when we fouled up a task he gave to us
our friends, our teachers, our loves
whose interactions shaped
who we eventually have become
while we believe that we have always been
so independent and autonomous
it may be worth a moment to reflect
upon the influences
we are inclined to casually neglect
and recognize the fact
that we are always part
of that great whole
which we so desperately try
to disavow for individuality
only to recognize a few years later
the minimal common denominator
life is a wonderful excursion into space and time
always surprising, turning on a dime,
leaving us puzzled well unto the end
always intent to look beyond
the next bend of the river …….
Jan 15, 2016
Jan 15, 2016 at 7:46 PM UTC
He approached the castle, wand in hand,
That cool, dark, and creepy night.
The Dark lord’s presence fouled his thoughts,
He felt something was not quite right.
Through fire, wind, earth, and water
Battled brave young Harry Potter.
He had a plan ready for him
But not alone would he stand
For with his friends at his back
They would rid the darkness from this land.
Through fire, wind, earth, and water
Battled brave young Harry Potter.
Tricked by those who still walked the dark path
He watched his god-father breathe his last
Then picked up his wand from where it lay
And readied for a mighty blast.
Through fire, wind, earth, and water
Battled brave young Harry Potter.
The dark lord cast at the same time
Brave Harry held his wand true and right
As the spirits of all the Dark lord killed
Were released, at last, into the night.
Through fire, wind, earth, and water
Battled brave young Harry Potter.
Nov 24, 2012
Nov 24, 2012 at 11:32 AM UTC
I can go back years in my mind
and still
that changes nothing for today
I am such as I have never been before
and still
she is not enough
For to me all things
even dreams and death
are tangible
And such that I could touch
life and love alike
but the world spins in it's own way
I retrograde in my emotions
and there is no center
to loss and losing
My only comfort is this, you
and still I cling
knuckles white and bleeding
There is none and nothing to surround me
Still my body chokes
On air fouled with memories
And dreams
oh nightmares
that they would leave their scars and go
But the world and whims of life
are not as such
and such I should have known
Fools live and die
and I am still afraid
of life and death at once
The coffin of my mind is unburied
and such these memories renew
a soul tired in its journeying
This is now still
a day to remember
though many I still forget
For time passes like water
through this life
and on into the next
These scars I carry
though the weight not the same
still I feel its presence
Let me pass
just as I am
in the shadows of the overgrown
Into that which calls me
by my own name
in the dying light of the stars
This day is still only a rising
that will set into the past
and I will let you go
As I have done so many before
such is the way of the world
still she spins, in fields of flowers
Jul 4, 2018
Jul 4, 2018 at 12:05 AM UTC
The flames soared high
Above the broken city-
Troy sodden by war
Necks cut, women ***** children
Enslaved. The sea mirroring
The city’s pain, screaming waves
Piling on the shore.
In the dust lay
The groaning towers of Iliam
The beaten
Shards of a brilliant culture
Felled and fouled
By barbarians.
Around the moping Cypress
Heroes' ashes
Lie infertile,
While Achilles moans in Hades
Weeping unwashed tears
For his body's fading
And his shadows continuance
In eternal gloom.
Feb 18, 2017
Feb 18, 2017 at 3:12 PM UTC
Have you noticed how the music screams,
How children in the mall confront,
How anchormen are filled with glee
When TV news disaster's front?
Noticed how the colours fade
When iridescent seas are fouled
Or skies turn turgid grey from blue
And football crowds scream hatred loud?
And why is it that every time
An ethnic immigrant complains,
He points the finger square at us,
The fools, whose benefits he claims?
And Asiatic hatreds brew
Between the Indian brother’s, brown,
Over Kashmir’s shaky border fight
And Pakistan’s deep, angry frown.
There’s trouble in the Middle East
Kalashnikovs shoot up the town,
Somebody soon, should tell those boys
When slugs go up, they must come down.
And what about the filthy beasts
Who scatter needles in the sand
To leave the fickle fall of dice
To innocents with tender hand.
Have you noticed how the wealthy keep
The good stuff for their selfish self?
The rest of WE are left to fight
Amongst ourselves for lowest shelf
And how about Ghaddafi’s end
So brutal at the sandy drain
Where wild eyed Arabs shot him dead
And TV watchers, fat, complained?
And listen to the moaning Greeks
Who’ve clearly lived beyond their means,
Complain about austerity
And pauperize their Europeans.
And witness now the howling Yanks
Who stand to point recession’s claws
Directing blame at anyone,
But themselves, whom problems cause.
And finally an Arabesque,
Macabre in its grotesque call,
Of skeletal, Ethiopian forlorn
Whose starving end, ignored by all.
There’s beauty in this bounteous world,
There’s Godly, good, and quiet serene,
But just beneath the surface lies
The human filth, deserved, obscene.
Marshalg
Observing my world in turmoil.
Auckland N.Z.
22 October 2011
Oct 21, 2011
Oct 21, 2011 at 3:48 PM UTC
Becalmed, the doldrums bear down frowning.
Hull fouled by weeds, persistent barnacles.
The ship is steadfast in her silence,
The light alone enough to shatter us.
Beyond us, off the bow the dolphins plunge
And leap toward home
While we, a company of refugees,
Lie static on this open ocean.
Our eyes are burned by distance.
No breeze to flutter them,
Our tattered flags of truce no longer fly,
But hang like limp, compliant prisoners.
We pray for wind,
The puff-cheeked gods of weather
Drawn upon our useless maps.
A force 10 gale,
The flecks of wave tops on our faces
Rage, determined demons,
In our dreams.
Oct 30, 2013
Oct 30, 2013 at 10:39 AM UTC
Love me all the same
please
Love me all the same
I speak about my paradise like its my own apocalypse
despising my own empty cranium
hold me higher my love
dont ever let me go
I built empires on the sands of your mind
a grain out of place and civilizations crumble and burn
love me all the same
please
love me all the same
you broken sonet
you fouled field
our pasts are fickle and ripe with pain
our falicies where religions decades ago and generations before
they where truths
whispered in hushed shadows
and murmured between soulless corpses
I am a drunk who rambles about sobriety
my dear love me all the same
please love me all the same
my feilds are cracked with fractures more then skin deep
the mountains in my mind are carved from the pebbles of the souls
ive crushed beneath my foot,
you have no idea the weight i carry withen myself
too much for a legion of mules to bare
but just enough weight to bend my sanity,
my dear i beg you
please love me all the same
Apr 13, 2015
Apr 13, 2015 at 6:04 AM UTC
My cheeks against the breast of the willing to embrace my cold fingers, are clammy with perspiration the hot air thirsts for. Every racing pulse amplified out of sound into vibration is a symphony of racing music into braille for our living hearts. Our pleasure met with caution, pacing each stroke, is personifying true dependence seizing our moment. My weight featherless, embracing welcoming arms intertwining, delights our insecure minds with assured acts of permission. Every motion increasing steamy exhales, scented ecstasy defuses from my love origin. My walls collapse with silent ripples, and constant oral doings, is an awesome relief. My eyes again meet disbelievingly upon the mounting passenger arisen from my open heaven. Every ****** of passion intensifies building stronger yearnings for grasping this entire ****** I am exploding inside and rippling out, every wave a breath on my lips. My shoulder is met with shoulder lying in silent breath's fouled with the presence of two lovers.
Mar 9, 2010
Mar 9, 2010 at 11:43 AM UTC
*like sugar and spice in separate jars
opposite but complementary, neatly-packed
and labelled on Mother's clean shelves
sweet and cloying like sunsweet sugar
tangy and exotic like the spices of yore
that launched hapless ships into stormy waters
that's what this thing called life is like
often a dream to live and revel in, but also
a nightmare of garish detail in relief
fouled by the ghoulish glee of decadence
and the things that we do to pander to our tastes!*
Dec 9, 2015
Dec 9, 2015 at 4:03 PM UTC
your a pretty girl in platinum, anyone tells you, your not. You've got the football team just crake em'.
Like that **** don't matter, you'll forget about it when life is served to you, on a silver platter.
you smile in all your pitchers, but you've got all of them fouled. because behind closed doors your broken, and inside you feel like your choken'
You've got the chance to be the best, but inside your just like the rest.
Life's not fare, not what its all cracked up to be.
You watch as your mom forgets you dad's infidelity.
Your brothers never home, he left when he was old enough
leveeing you to pick up the ruff stuff.
He smokes to much duch in the bathroom, acts out, schools about to call your dad soon.
Your mom reads the note you wrote, se calls you out and pushes you down.
Sais if you ruin the face of the family, they'd never find your body.
Because of this, you feel death is your best option.
The way out its in the bathroom, take a few pills you'll be dead soon.
your running a race but you'll never finish it. But all your doing is trying to save face.
Now I'd like o take this moment, to tell you to take a bow, weight for the call of the Curtin, because you've fouled them all, they never knew you were hurtin'
After all this you come out alive.
Because some kid saw it in your eyes.
Remember that kid you watched get pushed to the ground, he knew that you were feeling numb and you really had no one.
the kid stud up for you when he never even knew you, he stood up because he really hoped you would come out of it, and be above it....but you never woke up, in your head you had enough, your mom cant see It because she's to busy trying to be 'it'. your dad doesn't notice you, and your brother doesn't even know you, so who can blame you for wanting to duck out?
cant say it agene ill see you when I don't want to pretend.
Jul 26, 2015
Jul 26, 2015 at 3:20 PM UTC
balancing punches against my waist line
with creatures and cancers that got
close enough to figure me out.
fingers nestled and danced with a thin boys spine
they spooned honesty
through quick teeth with
impossible intentions.
never planning but learning lessons.
planting gardens around
a king on his throne
soft as sand
who gets thrown
off by the sweetness
that floods through his veins
when a tender lipped tulip
breaks and bends in front of his eyes.
wilting in water
and falling on pine, a look from a mother
and they're dead right on time.
grasping fortunes for reference
as to cause birthed through preference.
fouled by income, the souls follow in some
and the door is unlocked like in a waiting room
but no one ever dared to get up and walk out.
Apr 8, 2012
Apr 8, 2012 at 11:08 PM UTC
You were so beautiful,
Like a marble statue
Behind millions of dollars of security.
But now your insecurity
Has defiled your purity;
The glossy perfection
Turned rotten
At your crystal lips of limestone;
You flawless face, now
Fouled by fatality;
And worst of all:
Your once sweet words
Are now rancid with
Distaste of me,
And it simply destroys
The beauty I see in you,
A beauty greater than
Any Greek statue
Carved eons ago.
You don’t see that your ego
Sped up time’s flow,
Faded your glow.
You’re rubble, my friend,
You’re nothing but old.
My fires of love
Are suddenly cold.
Jul 10, 2014
Jul 10, 2014 at 10:59 PM UTC
you
expect
ashes sifting silently through a dead sky
the sun only a memory, or white smudge
on a gray palette, no longer
the yellow yolk promise of clear day
the golden harvest a morose, mocking recollection
the reaping, now a remnant of fierce fire
you
would like to think
we
started a conflagration whose source
could be traced to abstractions…
avarice, hate, ignorance, misunderstanding
and could, therefore, be reversed
with equally airy notions…
peace, compassion
but the clock cannot be rewound
the cinders cannot be whisked away
from the fouled fallow fields
the baby carcasses
cannot be made pink and whole again
the waters pure, and capable of great baptism
for it was not a sacred sin
that scorched our flesh, closed our throats
and made black the world of grieving color
but a mindless rock that landed
in a calm ocean, and reminded
you
we
never had control
but faded away like dinosaurs
in our final days
Jul 16, 2013
Jul 16, 2013 at 6:23 PM UTC
She says complex, confusing, tough, involved, and hard to understand.
I say messed up. Wrong thing to say.
She says arduous, intricate, perplexing, abstruse, and difficult.
I say fouled up.
She begins again, but I interrupt and insist we get some sleep.
I then watch her set the timer, so she can brush her teeth,
for exactly two minutes.
Feb 20, 2013
Feb 20, 2013 at 10:41 PM UTC
Wake me up from the nightmares of my sleep..
Illusions of vehemence and intrusion..
Help me to face up to the reality..
To forbid the pain that I'm suffering..
She was an innocent damsel..
A by-standing suffragette..
An angel caught up in a daze..
She fell into his eyes..
Enraptured and hypnotized..
She pranced into his jive..
She was my sunshine,the brightest spark..
Young enough to know the road she had chosen..
He grasp her hand and led her to the pitch-dark..
He toyed around with her emotions..
He entrapped her virtue and purity..
Offered no recompense nor sanity..
Left her feeling tarnish and fouled..
Built up pains from the inside..
Hide all the tears she cried..
Away from this world..
I just want to have her held to make things alright..
To mummify the distress of bad memories..
To give her the comfort she needs to get..
To help her pull through all the misery..
If I could just take away the torment ..
To just take away the shame for a moment..
Casting its shadow in her heart..
Creating the crystal tears..
It hurts me to see her fear..
It hurts me to see her cry so hard..
My adored priceless belle,I'll always be here..
When you need a shoulder to cry on..
When life's an illusion within a blank stare..
And memories can't be relied on..
I'll open my arms to embrace you..
To share with you all the pain..
I'll cry the same tears from my eyes..
I'll renew your innocence..
Cleanse out your inner sense..
I will return your smile..
Let out the anger that's built up inside..
Let your instincts go on the rampage..
Scream at the rain, scream into the night..
Scream out the emotional wreckage..
Then roar your triumph..
At the unapologetic and unsympathetic world..
Unwise to the heartache you've been through..
They may not know your pain..
But of course I do..
Dec 4, 2014
Dec 4, 2014 at 6:14 PM UTC
The wind grew chill on a summer’s day
And the clouds built up outside,
‘It looks like a storm is coming our way,’
Said the folk of Ezra’s Pride,
The sea rose up in a mighty swirl
And it swamped their coastal town,
‘I think there’s something wrong with the world,’
Said the blacksmith, Helmut Brown.
He left the forge as the fire went out
Under the tidal surge,
And looked to heaven as folk would shout
‘The sea and the sky have merged.’
For the clouds above were purple and gold
The horizon coloured the same,
The ground beneath had rumbled and groaned
As it came, the pelting rain.
He went to look for his Isabelle
In the cottage down by the shore,
The water there was draining away
Then it hit the eaves once more,
And she clung onto the cottage roof
Where it swept her there in fright,
She cried to Helmut, ‘Just get me down,
I fear for my life tonight.’
So he took her down in his brawny arms
And he waded through the flood,
‘I’ll keep you safe from the world’s alarms,’
As he walked through seas of mud,
He walked her up to the higher ground
As the lightning lit the sky,
‘I’ll not let anything happen to you
For in truth, I’d rather die.’
But then the ground had opened up
In a crevice, ten feet deep,
And he was parted from Isabelle,
Who stood on the side more steep,
‘How can I come on back to you,’
The love of his life had cried,
As he stood still as the crevice grew
So wide, on the other side.
‘The world is trying to tell us things,
It’s tearing us all apart,
Perhaps we haven’t been kind to it,
It’s punishing us, sweetheart.’
And she had moaned, his Isabelle,
Stood out in the pouring rain,
‘Well what have I ever done to it?
The planet is going insane.’
Then the thunder growled up overhead,
As if to refute a lie,
‘It’s you who are insane,’ it said,
‘Get ready to say goodbye.’
And a lava flow came down the hill
In a stream, and glowing red,
‘Don’t let it come near you, Isabelle,
Just a touch, and you’ll be dead.’
We’ll leave them there on that distant hill
Where the world keeps them apart,
‘Why should you be untouched,’ it said,
‘When you folk have broken my heart.
You have drilled through me, and spilled on me,
And have fouled my lakes and seas,
Why should I leave your perfect love
When I’m filled with your disease?’
David Lewis Paget
Jan 21, 2017
Jan 21, 2017 at 11:28 PM UTC
There’d been a factory here once,
Squat red brick structure
Suffused with too much noise and too little ventilation,
Built for the purpose of making typewriters,
Unwieldy, cacophonous clanking anachronisms
Whose time, like the town it occupied,
Had long since come and gone,
The only businesses on the sad little main drag
Being those shabby, tattered concerns
Which flower, improbable and cactus-like
At the intersection of the vagaries of memory
And the ascent of decay.
Nothing sits here now,
Simply an empty lot returning to Nature,
Although half-hearted attempts
To accelerate that process have not taken root,
As the soil, fouled by metal shavings, solvents,
And only God knows what else,
Has proved less than amenable
To anything save weedy shoots and scrubby boxwoods,
So it sits empty, impossible to build upon
(There is liability in every spike of crabgrass,
A potential lawsuit in every patch of clover)
And wholly impractical as parkland.
The firm which owned the site erected a fence
To keep whatever was in there in and everyone else out
(In their final addition of injury to insult,
The check they gave to the fencing company in payment
Bounced higher than a child’s rubber ball)
But a generation of winters and general inattention
Have left the chain-links a patchwork affair,
And though the “POSTED” signs remain
(Their original angry and officious red
Having faded to a benign maroon),
Enforcement of their edicts is spotty at best,
So we sit, unbothered and alone,
On an odd little mound at the back of the lot
As the dusk begins to take hold,
I, in an act of mad optimism, the peculiar positing
That there are good things yet to come,
Grab your hand, intertwining the fingers with mine.
Aug 16, 2018
Aug 16, 2018 at 10:56 AM UTC