Pretty amazing to share space with the remarkable Diane Seuss (Pulitzer Prize winner, folks) and be part of The Blue Mountain Review, an absolute top tier journal I’ve admired for years! Full props to the visionary Charles Clifford Brooks III (who, coincidentally, was part of the recent 1455 Summer Fest), and who has created this community of writers and rolls out the aesthetic red carpet to make artists feel seen & special. Here’s another Winchester poem, written entirely on an iPhone over a series of leisurely walks on the semi-outskirts.
South Loudon Street: Yesterday, Today, Tomorrow
Side street after side street, lined with auto shops and experts better at repairing cars than themselves.
Blue-collar honeybees scour the parched grass for anything flowering, desperate for a feracious day’s work.
Train tracks muted in dry mounds of dirt are like unimagined books shelved in underfunded libraries.
Wind-whipped For Sale signs encourage gambling and keep poker faces amidst mid-afternoon thunderstorms.
Banks incapable of nostalgia attempt to recall what it was like when there was desire or reason for armed robberies.
Stubbed cigars, spotted mufflers, and Styrofoam cups—smoked out and cast aside—seek comfort in corners brilliant with filth.
Barbershops and bowling allies offer respite or at least shit talk and shitty pitchers of beer priced for Happy Hour.
Dark-skinned women without English man cash registers in establishments called Joe’s, Frank’s, and Ed’s.
Places that purport to buy and sell mostly make good on making offers entirely too easy to refuse.
Small cyclones of caffeine, ashes, and gasoline could instigate some excitement if they were capable of combustion.
Broken glass is forever on the clock, screaming out for bike tires, bare feet, or even sneakers with large enough holes.
The city squirrels will always survive, escaping overhead on power lines and sleeping safely at night, in the trees.
Service stations and convenience stores offer fuel and lottery tickets for people willing to pay for a way out.
Windows close the blinds, resignedly, on sex without love, drugs without joy, and violence without blood.
