A poem

24 Feb A poem

As a girl

I was dancing with it…

writhing amid the seductive and elusive mantra

of my parents beatnik generation.

Holding court in a JC Penney catalog livingroom

of the “be different” times.

Wisps of smoke and trails of mother earth

watching the children…

Of all heights.

It’s cameo appearance- when we could all see-

a burst of gunpowder, a crimson soak upon a lilac carpet

that used to be in my room.

Beneath my little frightened jump in the bed before the boogieman

reaches from it’s lair.

a padding for a sister who could not stay behind the safety bunk bed bar-

it saved many a cracked head.

In this light perhaps it beckoned that which we thought it protected.

Wanting to feast upon the truth and innocence of a youth.

The succulent inner workings of a mind so open.

Thirsting for less tainted tissue to nourish its fibers.

Wanting to be fed colored and stained by the easy breath

of the suddenly dead.

The truth looked upon its loyal masses:

the televised many who had sung its praises.

The extra padding important during the purchase

soaking up each drop of warm life seeking earth.

The knees upon the final resting place shrieking

to a god truth had disallowed.

Feeding each parishioner a healthy dose of the right now.

You begged for it.

Drink it in.

As in any attempt to hide the little girl winced as

deceiving hands scrubbed what remained

and dried with a towel of lies.

-RIP Sean Christopher Harbridge 1960 – 1971