"tacked" poems - Hello Poetry

My friend and I talk about it Neighborhood got decimated this year One after another the corners of community are gone We touch the elder memories as one might touch a head in blessing as loved ones pass We linger longest over John Found dead after ten hot days by other-worldly hazmat crew flanked by cruisers with their special, yellow truck and zipper bags ...found 'im glasses folded neatly on the night stand in his jammies all tucked into bed No one thought it strange that strange young guy would die already decomposing in his head Lost among his personal effects his fleet of rusting cars and half-assed projects Deck tacked to garage his herds of “pets” Easy to pretend he wasn't really there between jail stints or some imagined threat or theft of crap haunted by the shadows of his persecutors caught in motion lights and cameras' blinding evidence of jungle-jumble and malfunctioning alarms going off in the wind Everyone's out to get his stuff We could dismiss him-- mostly sorta ...except for times he mowed his grass at night or hand-built “the lunatic tower” just for mom from scavenged scraps and hammered hours power-sawed through the housing codes and horror of the neighbors... ...Such a special spectacle... ******* crazy-- John! He was enough for one day at a time like when he flung that threatening bolder on bilco doors for percussive effect "Get off my fuckin' property!” (not using his “inside voice") “Next time, that'll be your head!! He announces his intent to not get mad, behave himself to call the cops on me instead Fake-dialing While his mother screams in dread “John is off his meds!” My phone is set to speed dial 911 ____ “How did we miss this? How did we not miss him those quiet days?” How we miss him now How quiet

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Sep 17, 2018

Sep 17, 2018 at 4:18 PM UTC

elizabeth-balise

Every Neighborhood Has One

My friend and I talk about it Neighborhood got decimated this year One after another the corners of community are gone We touch the elder memories as one might touch a head in blessing as loved ones pass We linger longest over John Found dead after ten hot days by other-worldly hazmat crew flanked by cruisers with their special, yellow truck and zipper bags ...found 'im glasses folded neatly on the night stand in his jammies all tucked into bed No one thought it strange that strange young guy would die already decomposing in his head Lost among his personal effects his fleet of rusting cars and half-assed projects Deck tacked to garage his herds of “pets” Easy to pretend he wasn't really there between jail stints or some imagined threat or theft of crap haunted by the shadows of his persecutors caught in motion lights and cameras' blinding evidence of jungle-jumble and malfunctioning alarms going off in the wind Everyone's out to get his stuff We could dismiss him-- mostly sorta ...except for times he mowed his grass at night or hand-built “the lunatic tower” just for mom from scavenged scraps and hammered hours power-sawed through the housing codes and horror of the neighbors... ...Such a special spectacle... ******* crazy-- John! He was enough for one day at a time like when he flung that threatening bolder on bilco doors for percussive effect "Get off my fuckin' property!” (not using his “inside voice") “Next time, that'll be your head!! He announces his intent to not get mad, behave himself to call the cops on me instead Fake-dialing While his mother screams in dread “John is off his meds!” My phone is set to speed dial 911 ____ “How did we miss this? How did we not miss him those quiet days?” How we miss him now How quiet