Break-In

Behind the smell of rubber down the block children laugh
in instantaneous camaraderie.

Laugh knee-deep in gettho trash; broken out tv’s, moldy linens
warms no one anymore.

Paper boxes, crushed colt cans strangely absence grabbed
by rats worse off than me.

Stereos with tubes unscrewed plays war-ian reverb, 70’s ghosts
safe in electrical silence.

Children dance to the spinster, smiling in a sun that bleeds
though blinds if lucky crack.

"Lookers" on every corner fire crackers when police come, run
as children gather.

Admire christmas red twirling like a clown's hat pinned with stars,
streets speed-bumped and moon crater'd.

Holidays without snow, sleds, hills to fall down on, even santa
blushes while concealing a gun.

Bikes spew terror buzzing the hood like mexican lawn mowers
a little bit older no longer laugh.

Those salamander lips draw over rotten teeth, lampshade eyes
gold with grandmother’s jewelry.

Graffiti dedicate dead down a Darwinian dead end, noah’s stable
shoes slicked with mammal spit and manure.

Pushes deep through gutter water, falling beneath business suits
insatiable hunger paws the trigger nervously.

Doughnut moustache glistening with snot, speaks in sign langauge,
counts like a banker.

                                      (Thoughts while looking out my apartment window onto my hood)

Dark, the only light
Known to change now
Into what will be
Leaving me no more
No less wiser, alter
The illusions I prefer
Ever has chosen
To stay with me
Rest of what actually is
Moves on filling with
Wax and strings that bind
The what ifs and why knots
Together like a nearly perfect
Irritable paradox

     The scent of gas slips into my open windows.  I hear the pounding of cars pass by on 18th street heading into a apparent bueatiful sunlight.  Children are laughing. no one is crying.  Morning tries it best to pass through my shut vertical blinds, but it is no use, they are thick and nearly impossible to penatrate.  So little grass, paves the hot concrete that disingrates underwheel... the black carpet that sheds like dead skin beneath my feet picks up every speck of dirt, tattered paper and cat litter.  Feeling sick, I wonder if I'll walk outside today?