WEBVTT

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Sorry, I don't have
any funny poems.

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I have one, but it didn't fit.

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This is called
"Leaving the City"

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and it's about a friend of mine
who died about six years ago.

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"Leaving the City".

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The blacktop hisses.

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It's all desert, dust,
rock, no soft bed to lie in.

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The sun's still up,
it tugs the sky,

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wincing its heat of
destruction, its wandering eye.

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Fading clouds, the night
birds rude cry, and I, as

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barren as this windswept
land, panic and scream.

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The man, see his
face up on the floor.

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See his hands resting in peace.

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His pale skin.

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Who has sucked out the feeble
breath of the long time

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attempter?

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The burn and crack of dope flame
conjured like instant magic.

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Who has shut the mouth
vane behind his teeth?

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Transformed the brain
from word and sizzle

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to that keening silence?

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His path blown to smithereens,
its rubble finally stock still.

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His body stories absorb
our lurid history,

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but he can't know that now.

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Meanwhile, the odor of
spilled blood on cement, hair,

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patched together bones,
the smog of dying alone,

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by accident or by design,
the doors and windows locked.

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Who can stop the crawl
clutch of hand on arm?

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Rubber tube, or cloth,
or defeat, limbs

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dragged piece by piece
to float in white noise?

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A fan whirs.

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The soul always goes first.

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