On The Places I’ve Called Home

Grimy ghettos,
graffiti-graced brick walls the only chance for beauty.
Parents just survive and “don’t know where that girl has gone!”
Cats rummage in alleys where big boys bully babies
until there are no more tears,
and iron missiles fly like kites for a passage of rite.
For you can not become a man without a
notch in your belt::
Death dodges a bullet.

Uppity suburb,
artsy district with history
of American legends
both in writing and french fries.
Famous artists and architects,
fine dining and paintings
where nobody is anybody unless
you sing/act/dance/paint/write;
I run because::
I. have. no. talent.

Burrowed hobbit home
in the middle of dairyland,
bringing rabbit’s escape to
Alice so that she can preserve her Wonderland.
Crystal forests,
leaky roof,
smell of growing mold
and all that is green and thriving::
I grow; out of reach.

Busy ‘new money’ sprawl
where no one dares their hands touch
brown earth or soapy water.
They pay ‘people’ to do that.
And “it’s so hard to find good help these days,
don’t you know?”
And though my face may be falling
I prefer jowls than knife to skin
and to money spent on self and an image
I’ll never catch up to::
because it was never mine in the first place.

In ordinary
middle class
America
spring has sprung and
carries with it songs of
lawn mowers and robins,
radios and roaming children
whose parents aren’t afraid to let their
hands get dirty::
all the while intoxicated by barbeque.

I cannot afford the riches of my former life.
When I lived on Easy Street.
They are far too expensive.
For they bankrupt me from
smelling fresh cut grass that I’ve mowed myself
and squeaky clean dishes
which my middle-aged, middle-class, middle-of-the-road gloveless hands have wiped free
from what was left behind on plates that I’ve filled with home-cooked food,
from a kitchen I clean myself.
This past plunder keeps me from neighbors who sit on
the porch even though it’s far too cold,
but who look for community just the same.

This is where I’ve found home.
I much prefer
the life of common –
But it may not be where I stay.
Only time will tell where the path may lead.
They say that home is where the heart is.
But a remnant of my heart is left in each place,
And a remnant of each place is left in my heart.

linking with d’verse Poets

and my dear Emily: center>