A SMALL BOY

-
Across the street the small boy ran 
from his house,
Crying,
Calling out,
I heard him--
'Mommy, I'm scared'
I heard him--
'What's going to happen?'
Like a hundred children,
Supermarket children wanting candy
Playground children whining on a slide,
Mall children tugging big hands to toy sections and
how many children's voices sound that way?  
Then
Cop cars pulled up, 
Screeching to angled stops,
the man sitting on the front lawn
hands around his knees,
Cops surrounding, looking down,
The child looking back,
But he was walking away.
The angry man yelling at the woman with the small child,
Yelling 'Are you going to call...?' and it was someone's name
The big cop turned
from the sidewalk
and said 'That's enough'
And the man held his hand to his head.




Comments

Sextonesque said…
Nice! A poignant, moving piece. Definitely feels "here." An I.E. observational nugget for sure! We need and miss you Mondays:)
February 17, 2010 at 9:25 PM
mendoman said…
Your voice is gaining strength and clarity. Keep it coming!
March 1, 2010 at 7:44 PM
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Musso and Frank Grill

-
Image
           Let’s call him Mario.  He’s the bartender at this classic on Hollywood Boulevard, between Highland and Las Palmas.  You’ve been there.  The Maitre ‘d, Manuel, had ushered me into the empty bar around 11:45 AM, and while outside the sun blazed with mid-spring spring heat, inside seemed frozen in time.       Mario was setting up the bar and had bottles of wine, some opened, some uncorked, cork trays full of highball glasses, wine glasses, Pilsner glasses, tumblers, large jars of green olives, stainless steel containers of white onions—the little kind used in gimlets or martinis if you like them that way—slices of lemon peel, lime, candied cherries, all across the bar, so much that the waiter who came by shoved clear a corner so I could sit.  Mario brought me a Heineken and a glass dripping with shaved ice.  Billie Holliday singing ‘It Had To Be You’, notes hanging around the wallpap...
Read more

NOISE

-
Image
           I wear ear plugs when I go to bed. There are days, too, when I would like to plug up my ears. My ears are assaulted by sounds. Sounds I do not like and do not want to hear. I have sensitive ears. Hearing is my most highly developed sense and I listen to everything. Years ago, I had my hearing tested, for a job that had no bearing on hearing, but they tested my hearing anyway and the attendant noted, impressively, that I 'can hear flies walking on walls.' I have never actually heard flies walking on walls, but I hear rats in the attic sometimes and I bang the ceiling with an old golf club and that usually scares rodents. Cindy Greer licked my ear one night and I knew she knew things I didn't know about ears and licking but I let her go and regretted it after she was gone. I don't remember if I licked her ears, but she did nice things to mine. The sound was kind of delicious and sexy and after that I never wanted to get my ear pierced or wear an ...
Read more

ZEN CONNECTION

-
Image
With a vibe I'd recalled from some Zen retreat, maybe a restaurant in Big Sur, it stands around the corner from where I live and buy gas and get Starbucks and I'd been by it for twenty years, wondering what it was, this white structure with the wide-terraced entrance.  Sandwiched between a mid-modern apartment complex and a day care center, it's a doctor's office, and I was in it today, referred from the medical center that had diagnosed my bumpy-head, red-blotched burning scalp and forehead as shingles, a nerve inflammation caused by a virus that crawls up nerves from it's dormant hiding place in the spinal column and fires up tingly sensations and more.  Not serious, unless it gets near the eyes.  Where mine is.  And that's where it gets interesting. Ophthalmologists, they work here.  They examine eyes and perform surgeries and help people, in this quiet sanctuary with a lure that I couldn't identify but could vaguely feel. When the doctor came in to check...
Read more