Highgrove

You don’t thrive out here

Under the perma-sun

And when it rains it pours-

But it doesn’t rain often.

The words fail

Within the rift of our many languages

My heart trying to reach across the void

To put a hand over a shoulder

To if only to say;

“I too am only human.”

Here the wind burns.

Not only for the chapping zephyr

That spins each day into memory

Here the winds burn

Deep into the lungs;

Asphyxiating us in smog

Life is valued less here.

living by tooth and claw.

…And shotgun

They fight with words and fists and groups of people with similar mindframes in regard to their willingness to become violent    

Learning to grow around it

Letting the tendrils of ourselves creep through the minutia

Where so many of them are just waiting for the tide to rise.

Tina binds this place like tetanus

At night I see them walk the streets like wraiths

looking for trash, cigarette butts, spare change

sniffing out opportunity in its rawest forms 

like shadows become animate while wearing hoodies 

unconsciously searching out their desires

she doesn’t give a shit what she turns them into  

we band together in our struggle

we persist and we prevail

but we don’t thrive. 

In this sphere of influence that remains contained   

Somewhere deep within

Behind layers of pollution

Beyond substance abuse and neglect

out in the whipping winds

only wickedness takes root