Town Without a Heart

work in progress

 

What sensitive person have I misjudged and trampled

       doing exactly the thing I condemn in others without even knowing I have?

It’s only that I don’t know you well

         and I assume I do,

It’s a circular error in judgment capable of killing.

I would rather point a finger than clasp it to my breast to own the putrid decay.

 

I beg the ruined monster within me to install a synapse delay

To keep me from feeling like a crazed crusader out of control

       wielding a heavy self-righteous sword against the innocent.

What soulful person have I misjudged and trampled

       doing exactly the thing I condemn in others without even knowing I have?

It’s only that I don’t know you well

         and I assume I do,

It’s a circular error in judgment capable of killing

and I would rather point a finger than clasp guilt to my breast and own such putrid decay.

 

                      I watched in awe

                     as her hands moved gracefully over the keys of a grand piano

                             While divine sounds poured into the auditorium.

                     The small crowd clapped at the wrong times

                             And waved cardboard fans in the swampy heat.

                     They wishing she would quit playing the piano-beast she’d tamed

While I wished she would never stop.

 

It’s only that an old friend has laughed in my face over lunch today

     expecting me not to recognize the upturned corners of nasty condemnation

           and sense of superiority there.

She married well, a life perfectly mapped and travelled.

I am amused by the feminine bully there

           behind that old mask she would still wear

                   from when our homes were merely a bicycle ride apart

In a town with nothing left but haughty lepers

          with vampire souls that feed and stalk.

 

                      I first breathed fresh air when I saw the town limits in my rearview mirror.

                      I knew so many who left and thought you had as well.

                     And Martin Luther was telling us, “Free at last, free at last!”

 

Please, don’t try to insult me again.

Go back to selling Tupperware and stabbing people in the back.

My own wounds healed with a thick shell.

Don’t mock the simple, the wounded, the meek, the poor, the sick

     and expect me to applaud or fail to clip your painted on wings if I can.

I didn’t applaud then, why would I now?

You have me confused with people I used to know.

Nobody cares in that town in the swamp.

No one.

                       And he played guitar like an angel would a harp.

                                    How crippled his legs, how sweet the heart.

 

I would never beg you,

Never wish to make you scream or bleed.

I can claim it’s my own confusion

Or perhaps a blind need to make you carry a cross

       for once instead of trying to pawn it off on a harmless soul,

Maybe to show you something neither of us understands

 

                    But that he knew as he sat on that porch one last time

                    To watch his last sun go down, feeling your condemnation

                        With such soul, such god awful soul.

 

Perhaps it’s only hormones

Or a compulsion of mine to lash out at what I see as a leper

At what I am doomed to condemn with a sense of righteous indignation.

 

What is the pain I have to bear to learn

Not to duplicate the mistakes you made in my face and theirs.

Can we recognize ourselves as the vipers

No more, no less than lepers.

Reviews

[Fabian G. Franklin]

This was different than anything I've read in awhile. My hero Jack London lived in a leper colony and wrote stories about them. Shunned by society and outcast to an island prison to keep from contaminating the local population, they tried to mantain a degree of dignity and honor among themselves that "normal" "healthy" people would find difficult to achieve. In one story, when government agents come to arrest and transport an enclave of lepers high in the hills, their leader;once a chief and a brave wise man, stands off an entire troop with just a rifle and his love of freedom. Oh, here it is, called Koolau The Leper. It's about a ten page story but really worth the read if you get a chance. I like the deprecating humor and the effort to justify the self righteous attitude of the narrator with their own past. I can't wait to see what you do with this very interesting write.

[Gandré]

In this poem, I can see the feeling of powerlessness against social clichés; Mimi here you were working within an personal context, I would even identify happiness and misery with some aspect of the afterlife, but as we have seen, we are unable to accept the traditional view in this life as containing surviving individuals like ourselves. We do it day by day, and we are surrounded with greed, dishonesty, pretense and hypocrisy, and we have to deal with it; and sometimes those serpents are even sitting within our family. I really liked your originality when choosing metaphors. Some great lines there! Perhaps.. we could use Plato’s idea of the transformation, deterioration of the ideal state into our imperfect states to illustrate aspects of past and contemporary society in the western world. Great work, Mimi. I missed you. love, lara

[Narnie]

Wow Mimi... so much beauty interweaved in the italics with such strong conviction in the main text. This is a fascinating piece. It really feels as though it came from somewhere deep aswell... there is no bludgeoning but emphatic surety. The italics are like whispers.

[TL Boehm]

Can we recognize ourselves as the vipers
Deep writing. I saw myself in the lines...and shuddered. This is a raw, honest write. Gritty - visceral - a poetic smack on the soft parts if you will. Very strongly written. Well done.

[*** Hey Jude***]

I feel he pain that you relate in this moving prose. It is written with conviction, and has a feel of real life that is so very relatable. You show strength through this work by allowing your self to be vulnerable enough to look inside at harsh truth in life. Very touching writes My S.I.S.! ~ Jude xoxo :-)

[Skelasoldier]

Thats some deep words....excellent work