Lode

Sick of the shadow sleeping
underneath the gateway to her backyard
where the dandelions eat away
the atmosphere.

I am a delivery man handing out the things
the world has coming to it, in a green shirt
that is burnt up by the sunlight beating down
while on my rounds.

It’s not an empty town by any means
it has its moments when the crowds
show up and stammer in their busyness
unsure of what to do with all their power.

I hear the sports car drivers grind away their
clutches stuck in an engine that was made
to last forever. The church bells are reforged
every seven hundred years and it is time again
to open up the metal.

The blacksmith is a 20 year old woman
from some cabin in the forest
where she uses extra carbon as the darkness
in her shades of homemade makeup.

What is that ringing in the morning cold
that wakes up all the people living
older than the trees that line
the shopping strip?

They sit together surrounded by the stone
and let their eyes roll back and chant
the ancient sentences that still remain
embedded like graffiti in a park bench
carved by some pissed off kid
who no one payed attention to.