A small bird is perched
on the askew lid of a trashcan,
an outpouring of love and use
in the alley behind my apartment
where I set food for stray cats.
Eye me sideways, I am
the bird – I whistle a call,
performing, and am startled
when this bird replies, applauding
“not cat” or maybe “me too”.
There is an alley you can walk,
an ancillary vein flowing through
an overgrown tomato garden,
ripe vesseled onlookers can toss
grenades if they wish to be cheeky
or produce when charitable.
Past the garden is the bike chain,
every bike supported by another
bike to lock to bike to lock,
and no bike is left behind.
There is a rusted out “Schwinn” here,
a slight bit more shiny than new,
who spoke by swapping tires
for riding other bikes home
on handlebars that do not turn.
On a warm day, like today,
there is a basket woven
into a loaf of bread or ration,
someone rushing to retrieve
the kit with hands stained
red, clutching
overripe tomatoes.
There is a bird, noisily
living in a fountain by the museum
who did not consider me
when I emerged, a street cat
from the alley, and whistled her call;
I applauded, me too.
experimenting, this one didn't work out the way I wanted it to... and so it goes <3
Written for free-verse poetry maven @d-pend's revolutionary poetry initiative The 100 Day Poetry Challenge [Advanced Group] undertaken for Steemit School where @d-pend will be hosting a daily poetry show at 5 PM GMT.
@isleofwrite logo design by @PegasusPhysics
header photo base was taken by Derek Harper and is CC2.0
It's funny you say this one didn't work out the way you wanted, because this may be one of my favorite poems you've done. Maybe you didn't mean it to signify the labyrinthian nature of mundanity and lives tied curtly to cycles that circle down the, well, the drain. If that's not what you were going for, then darn, but the images are astounding in this piece. Just saying.
Not to say that I don't appreciate how it developed and what it became, more so that my prewrite and outlines didn't quite translate into the poem I thought they would.
All said, this is a bit slice of life and a bit biography and a bit extended metaphor in exactly the way you said, and darn, I'm just glad you read and enjoyed my friend!
I enjoyed reading this. It felt like each line and stanza was a tangible thing given life through bored exacting description through action. Like the birds playing in the museum fountain. I hear splashes.
Like the rope tomatoes from the garden; I see the vines and bugs flying around the flowers.
At times I was confused about the speaker. Was it a cat, a bird, or a human. I couldn't tell. Perhaps that was your struggle?
always my struggle, to be honest, and thank you so much for the words and read. <3
Lovely ... fantastic work. A slice of life work with plenty of layered symbolic meaning and things not written but clearly told:)Bravo:)
Your poetry has the gift of seducing me, dear carmalain. Today I see a magical symbolism in your writing. I see stagnant life step, life of appearance, dark corners of life, flight. Bird pointing out that something is not right, warning movement, alerts. Sedentary, perhaps, desire to fly.
the most honored,