Where They Lived And Died

When you don't know what you want to say, write a poem ...


I've come from the emptied shell of her house,
the one that protrudes from its yard
like a rotting tooth. It was possible once,
when it was full of her possessions,
the accumulated trash of a lifetime,
to believe that something yet pure
lay beneath. But bare, with its puddled
floor and mottled walls, its windows of
fractured glass, it's clear at last
that nothing was ever there.

The town is vacant at 5PM and
every third doorway is up for rent.
All Antiques Half Off (except #112)
but there's a choice of pub and 2 bars,
Tattoos are OPEN and the VFW is having a
Corn Hole Contest and Pancake Breakfast!
-- why must these things hurt so?

The whole place persists like a headache
that just won't go away. At lakeside
I smoke a cigar like Grandpa and wait
for the end of the day. The water is flat.
Gravity has pulled it taut as a sheet
on a final bed. Birds cross the overcast,
a flock of notes come loose from their staff
to wander tuneless on the air.
At one end the sky has been rubbed
by a last scrap of rainbow ... promising?
... promising? while at the other
the sun settles into murk, and dims,
yet will not die.