Through the fluid, slowly flowing glass
I see a smudged child in the chilling dawn
playing leapfrog on the pylons by the roadside
and the cracking concrete.
He crouches abruptly to study
the shimmering impression his features cut
in the puddle-mirror filling tractor-tread marks
in the blood-black mud.
Somewhere the lecherous groan of fossil combustion
sends slowly dissipating echoes
through the winter salt-stained brick walls and balustrades.
I picture this urchin hiding
in a yellow-blossomed willow,
concealed in a cascade of yellow rain,
intricately random,
smelling innately green.
Then man thrusts upon the scene.
From this, switches were made
to welt the backs of wayward boys.
Beside my fictional willow is a sign:
"New York State Fence, Inc.,
No Parking Any Time."
The wind is this boy's playmate.
He dances along its fickle course
over candywrappers and rusting carparts,
past a fluorescent fire hydrant
and up a streetlamp that just turned off.
There, perched like some fragile gargoyle,
he looks vaguely upwards
as screaming blurs strafe the iron grey sky;
staccatto flashes gingerly kiss each dark, brittle eye.
"I believe in death," he says,
"I saw it in a movie once.
I believe in death," he says,
"but I will never die!"
And as his component atoms splinter:
"We have greenhouse effect to warm us
through the nuclear winter."
I awake
bathed in the blue light of the hissing TV
foundering in a static sea
of sound-byte ideology.
poem written by JASON PAUL FOX.
You
MUST credit my authorship when reproducing this poem in any way!
Violators are prosecuted, no joke!
I'm living off the generosity of plagiarists now!
(It's OK to give my poem to friends or people at school, if you credit me and
don't make money off it)
copyright
2007 Jason Paul Fox