| | old Roman’s row
Roman catches fresh cut grass
thrown with damp earthworm in
the caves of his nose and his home
cue fire-engine wails and flash
as Roman, hands spread and nose pressed flat
against his epic window, breathes
and leaves in dry finger-painted font
a melting image of the spear
(Roman sows flowers in the winter,
tender poinsettias at the edge of his lawn
just past first snow near the walk
he wraps up in hysterical layers
then bundled in tight he waits-
rooted in his rocking-chair
he watches them die)
Roman hurdles his threshold’s black mat,
snagging with one hand his long, loose black coat
and absently straddling his front ditch-turned-moat
he slicks back his collar and
halts in his track
while he watches himself snarling up from the stream,
rude thick raindrops break his face and halo
out;
the smeared sky is a faucet,
Roman finds remote canals rising
quick as a sink unattended
Roman’s home lies on top of old earth
on past the gas station, a sunken corner, it
lurks, peering up, never blinking
it’s two skewed-wide eyes
as Roman boards his beaten brown beetle
low to the ground around the corner he goes
toward the cinder-block blender,
the university and fire trucks, he follows the sound
as they start to wind down, then
after seconds of silence
they pick up the downpour outside
both his doors
the dormitory’s twenty stories all out on the lawn
boxed-in, bomb squad, blue-red brown;
the sky, his eyes, the gutters backed up
and the swarm keeping warm with umbrellas and
bright coats, they cram all together
at the brink of the road, standing back from the brick-bottomed
buildings; it rains
Roman watches oceans form faster by the minute,
parked down the way playing
Suffragette City
then the firetruck moves.
Roman throws forth his
transport and
strikes
water pooled reaches half past his right tires
tickling the underbelly of his
automobile. Roman delves in a line along
the curb through the sea;
triggered tidal waves rise reaching
up for the skies like
the jaws of a great cocoa free-flowing creature
and envelop the ones in the front
and drench the ones back from that
and make obsolete nearly fifty feet of coats, umbrellas, and hats.
Roman (the birds)
boxed by radish racks on banana crates comfort
dissipates in an air of stunted,
planned escapes
a bus bench cringes, scowls and sighs
force-pinned under
Roman’s eyes, his lumpy tongue flows
from corners lobe to lobe,
his umbrella, white, tucked under one
stringy, foul arm
let me sit, his branches bray,
some fifteen stray
shopping carts standing
guard;
from Roman’s traps and trove he’s
plucked a perfect charge
this corner still sells gas caps and
back issue
tv guide.
this corner doles out
stops (Roman lets drop from each of his
hands sole, unbroken blocks)
to all it encounters, aged paper women in shawls
and striped socks
carry bags stuffed with treasure, cast off and now
found here
a blue man goes with a knee peeking out
and his shoulders,
crushed,
and his hat like a
rag,
comes a tall man, slim and sure he
watches his steps down
off the sidewalk-
flanked by billboards the building
appears propped between
poles,
topped in blackbirds, in droves,
present “The Dangers Of Smoking”
and “Be All You Can Be” both,
static,
argue and boast as the birds
man their
posts, Roman feigns toward his feet
and offers a toast
his jaws dance and he crows as he grips
in his hands both
cinderblock rocks Roman throws back his arms
in a welcoming ploy.
then swiftly, at once, a thundershot noise
shocks the lot and the customers stop,
turning uncertain eyebrows up, over, and
around. they follow the sound
to the source,
and the scorn on the corner comes rolling
them over;
the birds take their cue and blot out
the blue hue,
in a mass they make flight spilling
fright from their vast, frantic height. the sky echoes
the night when bombardment begins,
Roman flicks a thumb from his
Brillo-pad chin, unclasps his umbrella and is eaten alive
by his merciless grin
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| | Posted 11/7/2007 11:50 AM - 9 Views - 2 eProps - 0 comments
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