by Michael Igoe
Something the blue teenager sold you
left you high and dry, priceless, alone
with memories of evil meals
and your handcrafted tattoo.
A thing that amounts to ceaseless rain,
by sleight of hand,
the blue teenager sold you something:
a cause for wonder, a good luck charm,
as you loitered in the hall,
pursued your own thunder,
behind whitewashed walls.All the while,
your mouth brays about a daily routine,
scores long settled,matters finished,
the best part of a tired disguise.
You’ve said very little, since you think
every area is the same as mine,
the lush park expanse,the neon pizza sign.
I gauge your walk,you march behind me,
it’s a pacer’s gait, learned many years ago.
Something the blue teenager sold you
in an everlovin’ silent night
a music from breathing in sighs.
Your wick still burns,
your flame tells me,
you wrote those books
to feed the Machine.
Merciless,you’re entombed,
in a waking fate,
at length you weep.
He put a crease in your head,
sold you all you ever knew,
in the way of destiny,
a pair of sticks crossed
glowing on the exit door,
an aggravation;what’s more,
what the diallight says
illumined and green
shadowy light, last dialing
of an unknown number
you found on the wall.
Michael Igoe is a Chicago native who now resides in Boston, NY — recently published in the Pilgrim Quarterly 1/19 Spare Change, including being published in Cabinet of Heed in July. Michael has made TV appearances with CCTV and is a part of the Black Seed Writer’s Group (Boston). He won the National Library of Poetry Editor’s Choice Award in 1997 for urban realism and surrealism, and he likes the night.
