Tag: St. Johns

  • Saturday Night in St. Johns

    18-evening-crow-party Crows roosting for the night

    I seem to be on a poetry jag. This is a first draft:

    Our town is an extremity,
    the northernmost finger
    of a swarming city.

    The main drag on Saturday night:
    the sun at its lowest flings
    javelins of red gold light

    through maple branches
    illuminates the flights
    of mosquitoes, dances

    of dragonflies, midges on the wing,
    drifts of cottonwood fluff, the mating quests
    of the tiniest things.

    Below them the pavement reeks
    of spilled beer, pizza crusts, and wet
    cigarette butts. Our young also seek

    their mates, flashing dozens of piercings,
    tattooed tapestries
    on every limb, thumbs drumming

    signals on cell phones:
    meet me at the brew pub, at the party.
    No one wants to be left alone,

    rejected. The boom cars,
    the backfiring Harleys,
    the overamped rap from the bars

    grab the street by its nape
    and shake it till its ears bleed.
    Desperate to escape

    we walk to the edge
    of our peripheral town and watch crows fly
    to roost, blackbirds bed

    down in the reeds, abandoning the hunt for bugs
    to frogs and bats. A chorus of croaks. A high-pitched squeak,
    and the low, low horn of a passing tug.