The Struggle of the sunny and the sentimental

Does it have to be about smoking stacks,
Grey buildings on a grey backdrop?
A shrouded city consciousness, heavy and cantankerous
Does it have to be about the cold crunch, snow strewn with
Black pebbles beneath the boot of a man, hood on, head bent
Vodka on his breath?

Does it have to be about the brown paint-chipped rail
He clasps, pulling himself up to a grimy top-floor apartment
Where he’ll sit on a cold couch, rub his gloveless hands in vain
Looking out through his broken window
On that same grey scene?

Does it have to be this, in this age of irony?
Does it have to focus on that hopeless place
Between the lines of possibility in all our lives?
Do I have to adopt that outlook; hungry for something
Nourishing by internalizing
Until all we’ve got in the fridge are pickles and mustard

Does it have to be about an alley where the man
Leans over and vomits onto the pavement
Before returning home, thinking too damn much
About that window already half broken?

If I have to write about the dirt
Can’t I write about what grows through it
And not what lands from ten stories up?

← BACK - NEXT →