It's Still Life

A Town Like Ours

This town’s worthy
of hate, its valley
cloud-soaked, flowed
with rain and smoke,
and dingy as old
grey sheets, a bed
unloved, a corner
where the sun
never shines bright
enough, where bells
plead and peal plain
expectation off-key,
off the back
of war that emptied
our town of hope
but filled it
with bunting glory,
glory to God and
to Generals and
bullets flying
thick as insects —
a bird’s dinner.
The wires overhead
still hum with rasp
conversation,
here in this
rain-water soaked
town, here where
I was born,
a town too easy
to forget.

Miz Quickly’s Words: bed plain dinner corner war flowed bright weekend and Poetic Bloomings: In-Form “Anacreontic Verse”