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Stabbing the tiger with eagle bones.
by Johnny CrimsonThese are the bravest notes I've got.
I'm baring all so that you might
follow suit.
The black sweating trains speed
past my apartment each night and I
can smell their roped up death faces
in my dreams.
Each car filled to the brim, like
bloated, sweating potatoes, rotting
in a pot boiled much too late as if
the owner was murdered, and then months
later the killer grew hungry.
I was 6 when I first saw those trains,
walking back from the ice cream truck.
There was an older girl (much older than I was at the time)
lying on her side leaking into the street.
I watched her eyes twitch and I grabbed a stick
and played with her for hours. She was like a bleeding snowman
that had fallen on its side and refused to melt.
I get now that when her eyes closed she was actually dead,
but I didn't understand that at the time.
I just thought I was boring her. 10/06/2009 Posted on 10/06/2009
Copyright © 2025 Johnny Crimson
| Member Comments on this Poem |
| Posted by Kristina Woodhill on 10/19/09 at 06:43 PM I have no clue what to do with line one - it's that last word that perplexes me. I like the train stanzas and wanted to read more about what they did, who was in them, how they touched you, where they might or might not go. This feels like two parts/two poems as I read about the woman on the ground on your walk home. I especially liked the line - "She was like a bleeding snowman
that had fallen on its side and refused to melt."
You've definitely carried the grisly aspect throughout. |
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