Street Number 1
Karen Hallenbeck-Sikorsky-George BS,RN
January 26th, 2007
Pavement cracks, falling into your arms, somewhere hot and deep, there it is
Blacker than coal, the flame touches my turgid skin, where do you cry,
Weep, that candy cane wrapper lays beside my lifeless hand, clear, sticky
Like your entry inside me a year or a million days ago, fill me up with you
Take it away, aqua eyes widen, cry, and Christmas Eve dies, and the tree is
Filled with dead needles, this new year climbs my back, like a mountain
Dancer picking away at my bruised ribs,
Did I invite you in here, get away don't eat
My Reeses cups, don't move a hair on my
Head my inner child beats you, away, go
Don't stay on this pavement, bare feet are burning, turn away, run on
Tippy toe, silly boy you are, just a huge hard sausage pulsing in your
Pocket, hands at your side, school bell rings, that garish yellow bus
Pulls up (you won't climb in), and the driver looks sad, she has nothing
Left but empty gin bottles lined up beside her smudged bedroom window
Smell of old sheets, not sex, and the hands that strangle her are the
Bill collectors, and grown children who care not
Watching her die day by day, and the ruby red lips
School age boys and girls, cut her open for life
She is sentenced, the predator fades, he waves
Poppy seeds, the poppy plant, the heroin dream, the valium fades, you are
But a drugged version of normal, and your knees quiver, the light dances
Where did you go today, did you dance in the smoky room, alone at times
Did the beat drag you there, to an abyss that is colorless, soundless but
Deadly will you bury yourself in rhythms that fade, will you regress to the
Days of death when you were born, diaper unchanged, parents blizzard cold
Stay away, walk if you can do so, march like ants
Line up for the soldiers pull their trigger(s) in unison
The executioner is waiting (for you) and the fight to
Live is a lost battle, who flies this flag in America?
Lost, more lost, she is futilely blind in a maze where rats race endlessly
Her hair cut short like the men who plague her, beat their drum is it over
Five minutes worth, could a life this long be this short (it is) and the luxury
In the meadow madness where horses move like rabid dogs in ghetto slime
Over and over is it your hallucination (or mine) that cracks like a rotten egg
Smears your face with residue, and tears hatred shreds in your face, go
She breathes silently, there is no one home
Rests in fitful sleep, the virus borne vector is she
Lifeless pale and wanton flesh is gone, he is too
Remove spirit that is left, and intellect is antagonism
I love watching you this street party is deafening, and no words come forth
From the thousand mouths speaking, eating, laughing, and the many bands
Are playing, and music is not here, cannot be heard, this is the year of
2007 and when will life fade, the earth crash with a resounding boom
Tuba sounds irk me with madness, but the crisp cut of a vocal can clear
The air after the winter storm, the tropical fugue, come fade with me
Go on, take me there...
Go on...
Take me there, Street Number 1...
Stop...
