"vaguely" poems
Picasso
you give us things
which
bulge:grunting lungs pumped full of sharp thick mind
you make us shrill
presents always
shut in the sumptuous screech of
simplicity
(out of the
black unbunged
Something gushes vaguely a squeak of planes
or
between squeals of
Nothing grabbed with circular shrieking tightness
solid screams whispers.)
Lumberman of the Distinct
your brain’s
axe only chops hugest inherent
Trees of Ego,from
whose living and biggest
bodies lopped
of every
prettiness
you hew form truly
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A penny sits in the middle of my hand.
Vaguely warm and slightly worn
But still shining brightly.
On one side you see the current residence of
The late Abraham Lincoln.
On the other you see the man himself
Facing to the right
As if watching for assassins.
I roll it around in my palm,
The rough edges scraping past my
Calloused hands.
I can almost hear it sigh
With relief as I put it back
Down again.
Nov 14, 2012
Nov 14, 2012 at 7:14 PM UTC
When people ask if you're weird, or tell you,
or want to believe themselves strange,
eclectic, or odd.
It's vaguely disgusting to me,
cringeworthy in a mild degree.
We think we're so different,
but we are not.
The individualism of people
should be and is comparable
to the individualism of ants.
Who looks at the anthill and
sees something in particular,
something behaving specifically
"uniquely"
from every ant and every anthill?
Why do you believe in yourself?
I see this, as a conversation about
depression, and your partner
does not respect you
but instead wants to
tell you how they feel worse,
or have it worse, or "understand" more
about the affirmation or situation.
A person looking for individuality
through a lens of misery, anguish, and sadness,
is truly alone in their minds, and missing the
reality that these depressions exist without them.
The statement, "you are not alone" is an attack,
or an offense to these people, because it says
"you are not as unique as you think",
it strips them of their identity and individuality.
This is true of many ideologies and affirmations.
I quit individuality, this constricting sense
of holding everything of yourself in center,
to be a drop in the whole, something fluid.
If you split your affirmations from yourself,
you'd see we're all the same;
Affirmations are just currents in the ocean.
I look at myself; and people see a man,
a radical feminist, and sometimes a musician.
As labels, these each have their own presupposed notions,
[especially, "man" or "male" in the patriarchal gaze]
which hardly, if ever, are true,
but as affirmations, when I consent to using them,
these are no longer stereotypes that constrain me,
but similarities that I realize
I can embrace or shut out in others.
Affirmations do not make me more unique,
but similar to more people.
If I remove these affirmations to try and get to my "true" center,
my purest form of self, I see I am without meaning.
This is why I quit Individuality.
Jun 28, 2014
Jun 28, 2014 at 1:59 PM UTC
Dear, though the night is gone,
Its dream still haunts today,
That brought us to a room
Cavernous, lofty as
A railway terminus,
And crowded in that gloom
Were beds, and we in one
In a far corner lay.
Our whisper woke no clocks,
We kissed and I was glad
At everything you did,
Indifferent to those
Who sat with hostile eyes
In pairs on every bed,
Arms round each other's neck,
Inert and vaguely sad.
O but what worm of guilt
Or what malignant doubt
Am I the victim of,
That you then, unabashed,
Did what I never wished,
Confessed another love;
And I, submissive, felt
Unwanted and went out?
18.2k
same setting from a year ago...
i am not sure why, but
before the clock strikes twelve midnight,
my eyes would surely open
no matter what.
coffee in bed right now,
with a few cookies to munch....
my bifocals, where are they?
i need them now...i could vaguely see
something crawls on the carpet,
making rounds, circling my bed...
oh, no, it is hopping towards my comforter...
I stretch a leg beneath the pillows
something moves very near my toes.
i withdraw my leg, alarmed,
as it quickly disappears...
...then reappears! now stationary...
this is starting to annoy me...
I poke it with a pencil,
fear no longer present,
now, with my bifocals found.
but it hops.....and hops...
and hops into hiding
down.....down.....below,
somewhere inside my comforter.
In lieu of me, it is now the comforted.
it is taking too long to come out.
.....something i realized just now.....
could it be possible, could it remember...
i was kind enough not to use a swatter before....
why, i feel like i am being welcomed!
we are playing hide-and-seek,
a welcome dance it is!
here and now, just like before
from last autumn,
we are finally reunited,
my cricket friend and i....
S a l l y
Copyright 2013
Rosalia Rosario A. Bayan
Nov 1, 2013
Nov 1, 2013 at 1:03 AM UTC
All strung
out
on
sadness,
empty shells
of needles
that injected
the next defense
to keep me going
splayed upon
the coldness
of metal
somewhere in a place
lower than
the floorboards
of the nether regions
of a private hell,
where no one sees
the truth behind
the doors of
beaten swords
of silken pictures
in frothy shades
of effervescent green
a smiling happy family
in which the
sounds of drowning
can only be
vaguely heard
a faded gurgle
in an ocean of sighs
Somewhere, there,
the pain in my veins
spreads like
a self-administered
drug
only it's not
my prescription, at all
just a parody
from the very
sick doctor
who shares
this house,
meant to
be a home
one who thinks
he knows it all
but knows nothing
In this dreamlike weaving
of staring blankly
into alternative spaces
when all is so heavy
that even breathing is a task
I suddenly remember
who the **** I am
and push my gaze through
the ceiling cracks
to look up at
the stars,
receiving their
shadows
of light
like a blessing
upon my
nettle-stung
tongue
and
rise
Sep 19, 2016
Sep 19, 2016 at 5:27 PM UTC
when i was a freshman one of my friends told me that there was a girl who was talking about me
asking why i was pretending to be straight and that everyone could tell that i was gay
my friends and i laughed it off like children and i quipped “i’m not pretending anything, just ask anyone and they’ll know”
now, i think of the rainbow socks, the only thing i own with a rainbow on it, being shoved down to the bottom of my sock drawer as if it would pop out at any minute and proclaim it’s existence if it were any higher. now, i think of the rainbow highlight that i applies in the bathroom at midnight, pausing every now and again to make sure i was alone. Now, i think of the pride nail art that i scrubbed off my nails minutes after i painted it on. now, i think of the last word in a poem that i wrote and turned in, scared i was being too obvious with the word they.
now, i think of the horrible creature sitting in my chest that simultaneously begs to never tell my secrets and to also scream them from the roof tops. i think of the sludge that lives in me and climbs up my throat, whispering safety into my ear while also ripping apart everything it touches. i think of the pain i feel whenever i say that i’m gay, because it makes things easier if the works sees me as a girl who loves other girls.
before thinking of this poem i had sat back and wondered how many bottles it would take of the various prescription medicines that my parents kept in the kitchen cabinet to **** me. when i remembered the name they would put on the tombstone i stopped and walked away. i remember the time where i couldn’t walk away and i had reached in and grabbed a full bottle of ibuprofen and i took a single one, hoping that my screaming head could be sated by the feeling of a single pill crawling down my throat.
i had a dream last night about someone called addison.
they looked me in the eyes and before i even knew what they looked like their physical form flickered until they were a bright shining star in a vaguely human form.
they sat next to me as we floated in a void on a picnic blanket and they put their arm around my shoulder which felt like a hug from someone i used to know but had forgotten
i stared at their glasses that looked too much like mine as they flickered in and out of existence and they told me i was not where i was supposed to be.
i didnt ask them where but they heard it anyways as if breaking into my thoughts. they answered that they could not tell me and when i thought why they said they didn’t want to spoil the fun of a brighter future for them and me.
i woke up with the taste of lavender on my tongue and the desire to change my name.
Aug 6, 2018
Aug 6, 2018 at 1:11 AM UTC
A is for Alpha
B is for Barbie
C is for Couple
D is for Destiny
E is for Engagement
F is for Fancy
G is for Gullible
H is for Happy
I is for Illusion
J is for Jealous
K is for Kingdom
L is for Lonely
M is for Mistress
N is for Nagging
O is for Often
P is for Pregnant
Q is for Question
R is for Rejecting
S is for Suicide
T is for Traumatize
U is for Understand
V is for Vaguely
W is for Whisky
X is for Xanax
Y is for Yesterday
Z is for Zombie.
Jul 6, 2018
Jul 6, 2018 at 3:07 AM UTC
When I was very little, my dad used to make up songs about what he was doing around the house.
Getting ready to go fishing, he'd make up a song.
Making lunch; he'd make up a song.
And once, he was making coffee, and I vaguely remember it.
My dad was holding me while he was pouring the coffee into the coffee filter,
The water in the coffee ***
I remember him looking at me and smiling and then he sang:
"I love coffee," he'd sing and I'd echo with what he'd sing.
"Coffee every day,"
"When I wake in the morning,"
"It gets me on my way."
-J
Apr 23, 2017
Apr 23, 2017 at 12:26 PM UTC
It’s weird how one vaguely remembers important days,
Like a friend’s birthday.
But I’ll remember one day,
And no, it wasn’t my friend’s birthday,
But actually, it was mother’s day.
I’ll always remember it,
Because you said you were cooking for your mom
And I remember thinking:
“What a gentleman!”
I’ll remember it because you were at church that day,
And I laughed because the idea of you being at church,
Made me believe for a while that you were actually a “Good boy”- a gentleman.
Most of all though,
I’ll remember that day,
Because you practically asked me If I liked you.
I remember saying to myself: “He’s a genius!”
Because you twisted it up,
But to be frank, I would have done the same thing too.
Instead of saying : “Do you like me ?” – (like a normal being);
You asked : “Is there a boy that you currently like?”
I also remember thinking ,
“How awkward”
Because my feelings for you were as clear as the sea,
But here you are asking, if I liked you.
I’ll remember that day, because I imagined how misty the smoke would look as it forced its way out of your lungs,
After a deep inhalation of the one you called: “Marie”
I’ll remember creating scenes in the desert of my mind
Of how it would feel to meet you for the first time –
if you’d hug me and smile,
Like a gentle man.
I’ll remember that day because I kept wondering:
“What if our first encounter was bad? “
“What if he doesn’t like what he sees?” –
I remember laughing because thought it was funny.
I’ll remember thinking that I should stop building feelings for you so fast.
I’ll remember it because I made my imaginations get the better of me –
I imagined us in the place where my only use for that place is to sleep.
I’ll remember that day because trying to get you off my mind failed once more-
Because when I fell asleep you were at the forefront of my mind
And when I woke up,
You still were.
Jun 13, 2014
Jun 13, 2014 at 12:34 PM UTC
it landed on my shoulder
and chirped in my ear
your voice
i closed its beak
but it rang in my ear
its ignorant eyes blinked
vaguely back
i had made you up
once again
Aug 18, 2013
Aug 18, 2013 at 9:20 PM UTC
I fall in love too easily
Feel pain too quickly
I let my heart flutter too simply
Feel torn too hastily
Is this what LOVE is?
So one-sided. unrequited. desperate.
In these foolish feelings
I am like a lost child in a hide and seek game waiting to be found.
Hoping one day you will see me as more than just another vaguely
familiar face.
But I know i was never on your mind...
Please don't feel guilty.
Just know...
if you ever think of me even for a second.
I’ll be here waiting.
Sep 8, 2017
Sep 8, 2017 at 4:06 AM UTC
the sound of a wave lapping,
summer thickens
and suddenly everything is
vaguely surreal, under the
hidden stomach of the stars
ghosts of silver struggle
in the white light.
when the water splashes
little islands croon.
love, rescues me from
the millions of pieces
where i lie scattered.
Jun 12, 2016
Jun 12, 2016 at 9:01 AM UTC
As I walked out one evening,
Walking down Bristol Street,
The crowds upon the pavement
Were fields of harvest wheat.
And down by the brimming river
I heard a lover sing
Under an arch of the railway:
"Love has no ending.
"I'll love you, dear, I'll love you
Till China and Africa meet,
And the river jumps over the mountain
And the salmon sing in the street,
"I'll love you till the ocean
Is folded and hung up to dry
And the seven stars go squawking
Like geese about the sky.
"The years shall run like rabbits,
For in my arms I hold
The Flower of the Ages,
And the first love of the world."
But all the clocks in the city
Began to whirr and chime:
"O let not Time deceive you,
You cannot conquer Time.
"In the burrows of the Nightmare
Where Justice naked is,
Time watches from the shadow
And coughs when you would kiss.
"In headaches and in worry
Vaguely life leaks away,
And Time will have his fancy
To-morrow or to-day.
"Into many a green valley
Drifts the appalling snow;
Time breaks the threaded dances
And the diver's brilliant bow.
"O plunge your hands in water,
Plunge them in up to the wrist;
Stare, stare in the basin
And wonder what you've missed.
"The glacier knocks in the cupboard,
The desert sighs in the bed,
And the crack in the tea-cup opens
A lane to the land of the dead.
"Where the beggars raffle the banknotes
And the Giant is enchanting to Jack,
And the Lily-white Boy is a Roarer,
And Jill goes down on her back.
"O look, look in the mirror?
O look in your distress:
Life remains a blessing
Although you cannot bless.
"O stand, stand at the window
As the tears scald and start;
You shall love your crooked neighbour
With your crooked heart."
It was late, late in the evening,
The lovers they were gone;
The clocks had ceased their chiming,
And the deep river ran on.
9.4k
Remember me as a time of day in the same way you create an acute awareness of the sun beginning to stream through by the ill protective armor of your window.
As your alarm goes off in the morning remember me in those moments that you wipe the sleep away from your eyes and vaguely remember your dream which was once your most vivid reality.
Remember me like I am three hours past noon and you're reminiscing on the days that once existed when you would be dying to leave the four walls of your adolescent day job.
Remember me like I'm the comfort of your favorite jacket you would throw on to protect yourself from the cold, day in and day out.
Remember me like I'm 4:45 in the morning and you're in your teenage years contemplating if it's still okay for you to wake mom and dad out of their deep sleep just to go along with your love for Christmas morning.
In that time remember me like I'm the peace that surrounded you and the excitement that caused you to lose sleep.
Remember me as I'm seconds short of nine in the evening and you sit by the fire awaiting your favorite TV show.
In that moment remember me as the adventure you anxiously awaited your eyes to meet, and the shadow of the warmth cast around your feet.
Remember me as a time of day through sun up and sun down
whether there or not through time will I arrive by regards of the clock and I'll meet your mind as I stand watch.
Jan 15, 2015
Jan 15, 2015 at 1:46 AM UTC
Side by side, their faces blurred,
The earl and countess lie in stone,
Their proper habits vaguely shown
As jointed armour, stiffened pleat,
And that faint hint of the absurd -
The little dogs under their feet.
Such plainness of the pre-baroque
Hardly involves the eye, until
It meets his left-hand gauntlet, still
Clasped empty in the other; and
One sees, with a sharp tender shock,
His hand withdrawn, holding her hand.
They would not think to lie so long.
Such faithfulness in effigy
Was just a detail friends would see:
A sculptor's sweet commissioned grace
Thrown off in helping to prolong
The Latin names around the base.
They would no guess how early in
Their supine stationary voyage
The air would change to soundless damage,
Turn the old tenantry away;
How soon succeeding eyes begin
To look, not read. Rigidly they
Persisted, linked, through lengths and breadths
Of time. Snow fell, undated. Light
Each summer thronged the grass. A bright
Litter of birdcalls strewed the same
Bone-littered ground. And up the paths
The endless altered people came,
Washing at their identity.
Now, helpless in the hollow of
An unarmorial age, a trough
Of smoke in slow suspended skeins
Above their scrap of history,
Only an attitude remains:
Time has transfigures them into
Untruth. The stone fidelity
They hardly meant has come to be
Their final blazon, and to prove
Our almost-instinct almost true:
What will survive of us is love.
8.8k
You know the type.
She's probably called something like
Isabella. Rosalie. Ginevra.
and you find her in the sort of novel where
she's outdone by someone called something like
Jane. Agnes. Lucy.
She's remembered in criticism as
Trivial. Silly. Foolish.
She's defined as Shallow. Vain. False gold.
She's analysed as the mirror, the contrast or the foil
and you're supposed to vaguely dislike her.
She'll reaffirm to the reader that the heroine,
whether she be plain or beautiful, is always, in the end,
Rational. Independent. Brave.
She reaffirms the heroine as someone who
learns and grows
while the silly girl is left looking at herself in the mirror.
The thing is sometimes I feel more like the silly girl,
the girl who needs a hand, the girl who reads books
and wants to believe the stories.
Sometimes, I'm looking in the mirror,
chest deep in my own trivial, silly little worries,
looking at the puddles not the lake, and I know.
I know I'd be one of the silly girls,
not the heroine, out there, just surviving.
I'd be one of those silly girls and I hate it - and yet
- what's so wrong with the silly girls?
What's so wrong with the girls who love themselves,
or love the wrong people or love their clothes?
What's wrong with the girls who are
brave but not rational,
independent but trivial,
selfish but practical?
What's wrong with those girls,
because I always find myself preferring
the Ginevras and the Isabellas anyway.
Jan 9, 2018
Jan 9, 2018 at 11:56 AM UTC
My dear, if you were to cut me open,
to tear away my measly skin,
you would not find
the contents of an ordinary human being.
You would not find veins
or internal organs,
especially not a human heart.
Instead, you would find a battlefield, with freshly made bomb craters
and you would find discarded bullets,
fashioned from spiteful words,
that were perhaps destined for use on my worst enemies
but were instead aimed at myself.
You would find the remains of a daisy field
with the left over petals
looking vaguely like feathers
that fell from doves
or perhaps even angels.
You would find memories of a tiny village
once colourful and lively
but swept away by multiple hurricanes,
that took all happiness and innocence along with them.
Blood would not pour
from my lifeless body,
but dark cigarette smoke would seep from the wounds,
and if you closely investigated,
you would find that the fumes were made up of
microscopic black moths
that had all my lies and promises
carefully written all over their feeble wings
For I am not a human being, but simply a worn out shell of one.
Dec 9, 2013
Dec 9, 2013 at 3:01 PM UTC
There are too many things
I still want to do with you
Baseball games
in the blistering heat
so I can Instagram our love
Trips to the city
I'll tweet about
just vaguely enough that people wonder
what we did all night
in that big hotel room
Swimming with sharks
getting likes on our Facebook photos
and jealous messages from our friends
Our relationship
was always set to private
I guess I liked it better that way
but whether or not my friends can see it
there are too many things
I still want to do with you
Please don't be done with me yet
Jun 7, 2014
Jun 7, 2014 at 5:01 PM UTC
she had always said
her favorite color was yellow
for the girl with buttery skin and crystal eyes
it seemed rather fitting
yellow was the color of sunshine
and the color of her hair
after it had been bleached by summer
it was the color of the bumblebees
that drank from her favorite flowers
flowers that now
line her grave
she told you
her favorite color was yellow
because she knew you needed someone
radiant with light
to ease the depth
of your own darkness
so she said
when autumn arrived
you could watch the ground
become littered with yellow leaves
together
when you asked what color
lie beneath her skin
she told you it was yellow
she made herself believe
her body was freckled from stardust
and not from the amber glow
of cigarette burns
she still said
her favorite color was yellow
so she could continue being the light
in your colorless world
soon enough
your favorite color was yellow too
but not for the same reasons
she fell in love with it
you only saw yellow vaguely
in the form of teeth
stained from tobacco and too much coffee
smiling grimly through cracked lips
dripping poisoned honey
you guilded the word ¨love¨
with muted ochre lies
and now
she no longer feels the warmth
that once emanated
from her favorite color
she no longer tastes
the sweetness of butterscotch
and papaya on your lips
for you left her with nothing but
the sour residue of lemons and bile
as your gentle breath
extinguished her golden flames
and reduced her heart to ash
and now
she realizes that bumblebees
can also administer a piercing sting
and as she watches the sunset
with its amber hues
she no longer sees
the color yellow
x.
Jul 10, 2018
Jul 10, 2018 at 12:14 AM UTC
Teetering on her baby legs
A newborn with a Solo cup
bombastic red with a few
undulating ribs
Held firmly in her hand
Is this her first or her third?
Somnambulant yet eager
And just a little out of place
In a foreign territory
On newly contested lands
She stumbles through a raucous crowd
Or was it just white noise?
She’s lost her companions
Somewhere
Although they could very well be close at hand
In the distance she can make out
Laughing faces
Bodies moving to and fro
Spilling forward, little messes
Throwing back cheap libation
She passes through a room and out the door
Into the out-of-doors
Someone following her unbeknownst
Watching her cautious, curious steps
And when she turns and sees the blur standing
She greets it
“Hail Fellow!”
Bouncing from variable to variable
Frequency to frequency
Confident and in command
Of a seemingly controlled chaos
He approaches smiling and holds out his hand
Anonymous
Having drawn her attention from the stars
That she could not find above
Leaning against the garage’s eastern wall
She takes it awkwardly
Tentative she smiles back reassured
Wobbling she returns standing alongside him
Or was she in front?
Purposeful and en route
Emboldened by his presence
And how the way was parted before her
Just by his being there.
By being so close.
She felt vaguely special
it showed in her half-smile
Cloaked in bangs
She held her head just a little bit higher
The co-conspiratorial glances
Met by boys eyes
And shes
Went unseen by the girl with the
Solo cup
One of tens upon tens upon tens
A coven would have known
It’s better not to
However.
She was shown a seat to rest
And her cup refilled
She takes a sip and smiles again
She takes another and then a gulp
That spills
He takes the cup away
And places it on the low table
Suggests she go to the restroom upstairs and get herself
Sorted
Embarrassed she is relieved for direction
Someone knows what’s going on
And his caring
Taking the time
His kind eyes
She’s usually alone
She waddles up the stairs to find
a toilet and a mirror
God she thinks
I look a mess
She tries to fix it
The hair
The eyes
The lips
The dress
The stomach
The *******
The thighs
She shrugs her shoulders at her reflection
Exhales and steps out again
To find him standing there
waiting for more.
She wants another cup.
She’s missing her cup.
I’ll get you the cup he says
In just a second.
Come.
Sep 30, 2018
Sep 30, 2018 at 3:53 PM UTC
you see
i had always felt
that in a dream
i was the absence
of the dream
and then it dawned on me
that i was in a time piece
trapped during forgotten hours
where everything is alien
but vaguely familiar
the beach beneath me wandering
off to anywhere but here
and i straddle the shoreline
palming stray shards of sea glass
always the color of her eyes
and i am abruptly upside down
an upheaval, a maw
where i thought it as
a nightly revenge
for skipping stones
and again i am upended
& back on the beach
born of broken hourglasses
and it makes me think
that god likes to watch things leave me
Feb 15, 2014
Feb 15, 2014 at 11:35 AM UTC
Nobody was born today
But you picked up a cake anyway
for five dollars fifty plus tax
Now you're watching
Criminal Minds on a couch made for three
and eating it with your hands
It vaguely occurs to you that
you should be sharing it with someone
or at least put on some **** candles
You're not even hungry
you don't even need to fill a void
you did good today
You hardly even miss her anymore.
You haven't thought about it in weeks.
If you just slept you'd be fine in the morning.
You consider it all
examining the red velvet
stuck under your thumbnail
Maybe you're looking for
a file or a prison shank
sunk beneath the frosting
Or maybe you just need
to make this a Night
The Night of the Cake
It'll blend in
with the others
in a matter of time
But for a few weeks
you'll look back
and remember
you are a member
of those romanticized ranks
those plastic or terracotta statues
Tomorrow you will feed the dog.
And after work you will pick up groceries.
And after groceries you will pay your bills.
But tonight is the Night of Cake.
Tonight
you become a stereotype
An unforgiving consumer
with chocolate-stained hands.
Aug 10, 2014
Aug 10, 2014 at 1:33 AM UTC
They enter the café just as some sappy pop song is playing
They order then immediately hug
Embrace
Swaying to one side, together, like the wind
Encircling the leaning tower of Pisa
Then teetering to the other solstice
Foot to foot, smile to smile, hand round skirted waist
Forearm resting on his tall blazered shoulders
This is forgivable in the young
Those teeny-boppers with defiant hair-cuts and posters
However, he has peppered hair
She, though voluptuous and tanned,
Must be in her 30s.
“Affair.”
My cynical devil snickers, between sips
But I sit mesmerized, and for the first time ever
Envious.
The chairs and the tables somehow seem more distant
The song now sounds as if it’s funneled through some crackling phonograph
The very light disentangles itself from stones
It’s as if a sky has opened up in my chest
Flying high overhead, one lone raven,
Its slow shadow
Gliding across my heart
Oh, how I miss you
5 states away
I see your smile on magazine covers
I vaguely sniff your scent on passing women
Yet you remain elusive - immaterial, haunting,
While this visceral assault
Leaves me bewildered - empty
An echo in a chiaroscuro cavern
Fading for thee
Jul 28, 2016
Jul 28, 2016 at 5:31 PM UTC
Have you heard of the
gardens clandestines grow?
The neighbors have, although
until today the gardens were usual, not a
pastime no one would seriously guess.
The flowers are conceptual homonyms
bordered by Boxwood africans
no breadwinning cardinal would bless
with its roost.
Grass beneath a golden ninebark
is slightly depressed where some pistol was.
For the past few years the neighbors have wondered daily What the hell is it this guy does?
What, with him always vaguely mumbling "...lots of business trips." It's dark
now, blood spatter coagulates on the picket fence.
Four tire streaks on the road,
the responding policemen kept it hushed, speaking in code
to disembodied voices on a radio. Not much more than a glance
and shrug at the neighbors' concerned inquiries.
One consensus formed: he was deep
in consequences from promises he couldn't keep.
This was speculative, of course.
The palm trees
rustled above their heads. "Maybe he was a clandestine,"
one of the neighbors remarked
as another dismissively barked,
"Ridiculous! He kept a garden!"
Jul 18, 2013
Jul 18, 2013 at 10:26 PM UTC