It's Still Life

Above All That

Bit by bit, I’ll do my bit, too,

‘cause I know a boy who’s magnetic.
A mettle personality. But he won’t
go out in the rain; says he’ll rust.
He giggles at rocks, too. And stones.
Sees the joke of them, the humour.
Laughs his head off when he holds one.
Says you can suck water from a rock.
From a stone, too. Growls that rocks
and stones aren’t the same thing.

He’s always growling about something,
or kicking at empty cans or bottles.

And he walks in an ankle-deep shuffle,
in what everyone thought was recyclable.
Recyclable excrement, he calls it.
Shit everywhere. Plastic. Plastic.
Cups. Bags. Straws. Cling film and
curlers. Pens and picture frames.
Window casings. Radios. Watches
that won’t tick and tock any more.
Garden hoses. Flower pots. Flip-flops.

He growls, “I’m better than all this!”
The sky breathes in iron red rust,
and just sighs “I’m above all that.”

I knew a boy who lived inside his head.
Told himself he was better than all this.
Better than those tall blonde buildings,
and rusting air. Better than ankle-deep
in everyone else’s.Shit.

He climbed a pole one day, a pole that
nobody remembers what that pole was for.
It was just a pole in the middle of
everyone else’s ankle-deep. Sturdy,
and tall, and blonde as a building,
and he stood up there until nobody
wanted to wait for him to come down.

So he growled at everyone else’s shit.
And said, “I’m above all that.”

I am establishing this as a new poetic form: “Den Enn”, where the beginning is the end. Written for Visual Verse Vol. 5, Chapter 6, NaPoWriMo Day 2 (dialogue) and AprPAD Day 2: portrait of a person (I’ve done it as an ekphrastic poem). Image credit: by Anthony Intraversato