Thursday, December 8, 2016

Kristen de Kline - #39: Poets with priors

greedy parking metres
man in blue tips my bag upside down
puffer coins brush wallet charger another puffer spill out
a tattooed cop waves her wand over me
like a prime time border security guard

only 10:30 and random woman in the Ladies
rolls on the lino, rocking horse foetus-ball
inches of teardrops
waltz across the dance floor
dribble, drool
fuck fuck fuck, she says

pitbull lawyer wearing navy blue suit swans past
no pink attire today
buried beneath Manila folders
      not deep enough
            buried that is
peroxided permed picture-perfect
pitbull smiles at me: "Are you OK dear?"
no idea who she's talking to
what I've slipped flipped into
no idea I've walked out of a Leonard Cohen song: half-crazy
beyond scorched earth beyond wasteland
I've stopped making sense

when I first left
in dreams skyscrapers collapsed
planes flew into twin towers, frozen in the frame
buildings roads cityscapes blitzed, hollowed out
in dreams I saw a hit man a bullet with my name on it
a marksman with a good aim

lawyer speaks gobble-de-gook
police  prosecutor tells you it's a very very serious offence
     oh yeah did I happen to mention I'm impressed...
12:30 court adjourned random woman sitting under a tree
running fingers through her hair
    ... fuck fuck fuck
you light up a thin green candle another cigarette
    ... psycho ex's pit bull lawyers trumped up charges
     ... I'm going down
tangerine overalls Cell Block H
is orange the new black
learn to forget
let me sleep all night
stop making sense
I'm
     going
               down
















6 comments:

  1. Dear Kristen, I was waiting for this. It's excellent, and it works at several levels of meaning. The Random Woman, the Pit Bull Lawyers, the Speaker - they are all of us, judged for our priors: the mistakes we once made, for the sins we committed against ourselves & others, when we didn't quite know how not to do that. (Fortunately, as I grow old many of my regrets seem to be losing their worst bite.)

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    1. Thanks Rob :) Glad you 'enjoued' it & it worked at several different levels of meaning. Glad also that some of your priors are losing their bite! But hey it all makes good poetry - having crazy events to draw on!

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  2. An amazing poem, a nightmare revisited. There is so much action and tension in it.

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    1. Thanks Myron :) yes definitely a nightmare revisited - and as we know such nightmares are indeed loaded with tension, menace and acceleration.

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  3. Yes, amazing energy captured and craft, thank you Kristen.

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