Chance

EvilToasterElfEvilToasterElf Posts: 1,119
edited August 2005 in Poetry, Prose, Music & Art
Chance

In Trabzon the streets bleed into the Black Sea,
which isn’t black, more the color of a vast bruise
below the flesh of the horizon.
At midnight some fireworks are burned into
the retinas of the sky.
Thousands of seagulls drift upwards,
their wings flickering like snow
suspended in the distance;
their squawks become white noise
against the screen of moonlit clouds

We play monopoly on a rooftop here,
the hat pays rent to the battleship,
and I look into the face of a girl
whose name translates to waterfall
when the sounds of seagulls bursts
into a wave of Arabic song.

The call to prayer echoes from
a dozen mosques and bounces
off the mountains and drifts
into the watery bruise of the sea

The call to prayer like so many calls
goes unanswered, I follow the sounds
of a wrinkled voice, beseeching me
to praise the creator of all things;
back to the water, black now;
under the half moon
which lolls in the night sky
a picture on the chalkboard
smudged by an absent minded teacher.

Thinking of old classrooms my gaze wanders
to the windows, to the sky, to the water
and I see a train of lights along the coast.
In the moisture of the coastal night,
the lines of streetlights and houselights
flicker like the candles in an old horror
movie, the mob is coming with torches
to kill this American monster;
who lands on a square and hands the
card to his friend to translate him
his monopoly directions
on the back of a card that reads:

Chance
Post edited by Unknown User on

Comments

  • ISNISN Posts: 1,700
    I knew it would be beautiful after I'd read the first three lines, so I turned off my speakers.....and the stupid music I was listening to......to tune into the night you played monopoly, that most tedious and capitalistic game of chance.....I feel as though I've just witnessed some kind of sublime pas de deux in Covent Garden....not that I've seen too many.....but some poems just dance.....
    ....they're asking me to prove why I should be allowed to stay with my baby in Australia, because I'm mentally ill......and they think I should leave......
  • I certainly appreciate the severity of focus. Every once and a while a poem just materializes out of a single line, or image, this one just danced out of my head and onto the keyboard before I had a chance to see what I was writing about, so I'm glad it turned out ok
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