Hometown Hocus Pocus
I didn't believe I'd actually miss you,
with your one road in and out —
drunk drivers writing lengthy complaints
in boggled cursive with their skid marks,
faintly mumbling curses at the grid marks
toggled back and forth
between uplifting and prohibitive.
Your safe, conservative
horizontal plane is endlessly self-derivative,
staunchly perpendicular
to your rate of escape, by vehicular
or intellectual means,
which continues to plummet into the negative.
You spill sameness downward,
like soft serve into plain waffle cone lives,
but never forget to add the sprinkles
or the occasional chocolate dip
to spice up the vanilla.
Your residents choose,
with a scintilla
of glibness,
between Charybdis and Scylla —
to remain and surrender
a yearly pound of flesh,
or to venture beyond the barbed wire mesh
safety net that your crippling culture provides
and risk the yawning maw
of the open world,
where strange ideas drift.
I concede, there's beauty
underneath your trademark grift,
even miffed as I am by its
efficaciousness.
The capaciousness of your nature
and the tenaciousness of your people,
though they may lack some sagaciousness,
slightly offset the voraciousness of evil
which permeates the doctrines
of your unwritten law
still thoroughly enforced.
Poverty and addiction are endorsed
by gentry neighbors,
tragedy and pain juxtaposed against
affluence and apathy.
The apogee: a tainted rose commenced
to prick the finger
of the inebriated vagrant
who was enthralled by its beauty.
The poison, fierce and flagrant,
ravaged his body,
but he expired in ecstasy,
softened by the sunset tint
of his intoxication.
Some radiant few who
discovered his body
lifted him up and mourned his fate,
nameless though he was,
the sorrow did not dissipate.
They reviled their careless peers
and took up the fight
against that blight
of misery via philanthropic mutiny.
For all my myopic scrutiny,
these are better men than me.
About the Creator
Jacob Sherman
The desire to read, and perhaps to write, should be cultivated and nurtured with care throughout every stage of life. For my part I will inject what strangeness and truth that I can into our written history. Expect no constants but honesty.
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Comments (1)
Your words shimmer with a tenacious patchwork effect. Each sentence proudly, defiantly supports the others until they in turn relinquish attention to the next line. You bring so much to the table...