You Start Out With Nothing
Rain.
That’s a place to begin, the way it turns
the long drive
into a movie staring silence.
Leaving her
at the airport, that’s another.
Staring absence.
Ah, but she’ll soon return.
Baring air crashes. Baring bad
luck.
A couple of days ago I worked this case,
a thirteen year old broke in to his neighbor’s home.
The guy was eighty-four. We found him in the kitchen.
Beaten to death for his car keys
and a roll of quarters.
At the kid’s house we found
a skateboard in the bathtub,
the water tainted with blood.
Outside we stood around and watched
them load him into the hearse.
Hartley lifted his foot out of the puddle
he’d stepped in, then put it back down
in the same place.
It’s been raining like mad.
It lets up from time to time.
It only seems endless.
That’s a place to begin, the way it turns
the long drive
into a movie staring silence.
Leaving her
at the airport, that’s another.
Staring absence.
Ah, but she’ll soon return.
Baring air crashes. Baring bad
luck.
A couple of days ago I worked this case,
a thirteen year old broke in to his neighbor’s home.
The guy was eighty-four. We found him in the kitchen.
Beaten to death for his car keys
and a roll of quarters.
At the kid’s house we found
a skateboard in the bathtub,
the water tainted with blood.
Outside we stood around and watched
them load him into the hearse.
Hartley lifted his foot out of the puddle
he’d stepped in, then put it back down
in the same place.
It’s been raining like mad.
It lets up from time to time.
It only seems endless.
posted by tearful dishwasher at 10:30 PM
2 Comments:
so many of your 'cop poems' have a james elroy feel to them, and what it is, is a child who stands there watching as his father beats on his mother. that hopeless, old-before-his-time-and- helpless-to-stop it, 'stuck in it' fatalism of a child like that.
they are lumps of lead i put into my pockets hoping someone doesn't throw me into a lake or i'll drown, virginia woolf style.
they are grit. they are the dark side of the moon.-
k.
Love what you've said here, Karen. I missed it earlier, I guess.
too cool.
You are a generous one.
All the best
Scott
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