Bent and Beat

the wind and rain, dreadful

songs that put me in the mind of

cold days along the muddy river, snow clinging to the dikes and covering the creeks that run off into the lowland neighborhoods

short cut side street memories

memories stalled along the bluff as trains pause to take on loads of cargo

huge iron arrows aimed at the heart of the city but veering at the last moment

as if cast aside by some magical spell of protection

an invocation i wish i knew

band saw monkey wrench mantras that fall silent as the brick crumbles and smokestacks are stifled

junkyard memories and iron bridge memories

still painted at the edges with green days and golden autumns

scented with the foulness of the pharmaceutical factory

this are the sort of memories that only crescent moons seem to bring out

big old chevy memories

cheap gas and loud music, empty streets and black ice

we tore through the west side as we tore through each day

as the years have torn through us

the simplicity of the promise that lay unfulfilled before us

when we thought the magical barrier did not exist for us

that we could pass through it at will

never knowing we were but tourist, no better than the hayseeds and yokels, staring up at the angels, obelisks, and steel and glass towers

allowed only to pass through in passing

but to be expelled eventually from long term sanctuary within its confines

it was an odd time to be and an odd place to be in

in the fringe and shadow no-man's land between the city and the suburbs

and the constant battle and shifting lines of each

not just encroachment and retreat

but more than a few times

they completely traded places

(not so much a trade as one side picking whichever turf best suited it at any particular time, sending the other to take up residence in its former location until it changed its mind again, which it guaranteed would)

not in that white slum strip though, where the castaway trash of the city blows southward and sticks between the river and the warehouses

never making it any further south

where the green hills and limestone cliffs are the norm

in neighborhoods that will never be what they once were

but they try, try to become better or at least escape the pull of gravity

that drag them downwards ever and more

and the saddest part

really

is that i could name a hundred streets

just like this one