My first prompt driven poem in at least 2 years. The prompt was, "Someone's house is burning." I'm still sorting through the line breaks, they seem awkward long, and perhaps even more awkward as they are now, in short snippets.
Smoke Flees the Flames of Its Birth
From up here I can see
the entire west side of the city,
a great cross hatched web
of black asphalt, interrupted
with rows of green trees
and dark rooftops.
In the distance,
deep inside the grid,
a house burns.
Even nine stories up,
I can hear the sirens.
Can almost smell the
plastic melting,
paint bubbling,
the carpets that hiss
as they burn like
ribbons of tissue paper.
Smoke rises in the distance,
curls between the trees
like a hand that reaches up
to touch the sky.
On the sidewalk below,
a man with a single crutch
pushes a shopping cart
full of bottles and cans.
Wheels rattle over cracks
in the concrete. Plastic
and aluminum rubble as
they bounce. Everything
is the same, in tact.
Junk Bound Riders
A man with wild hair and a red beard
stares through thick glasses, looks unsure.
The glass doors slide open. Bus 12A.
Cool air floats across the sidewalk.
An oasis in the summer heat. In time,
the man heaves his bag over his shoulder
and joins the others, their tissue paper skin
smudged like the stamps of cigarette butts
on the concrete.
My neighbor has arms like black licorice.
Her soft jaw chews words without teeth.
Consonants rounded like vowels
smack between her lips like taffy.
She rides often, but tends to go nowhere.
Mouth mashing, she flutters though
conversation after conversation.
No one is alone here. In the aisle,
a thin man clamps teeth to toothpick.
He is left-handed. I know this.
Marks to the right, write with the left.
He carries a lamp in one hand,
a camouflage backpack in the other.
D.C. Comics baseball cap perched
on his head: S is for Superman.
This Bar is Now Non-Smoking
It’s not quite my hundredth day and
I still miss the companionship:
friends huddle in doorways until
glowing embers dance
near lips. Fingers stained
burnt umber smash
cigarette butts into a brick wall.
Conversations of importance
never happen inside bars, but
here at the fringe you can still
feel the heat from inside;
hear the bouncers laugh
and sometimes the
hard crack of a pool cue as
it strikes. Here stand
the philosophers.
The nihilists.
No denying nothing.
