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Scars Publications

Audio/Video chapbooks cc&d magazine Down in the Dirt magazine books

 

Boulevard of Agony

Michelle Greenblatt

It appears as it’s appeared before. The scarred
ghettos, the pocked streets; I am walking
into the caves of the trashed projects, straight
into the hearts of the crack addicts
on the street corners, their money floating
above the sidewalks, bodies robbed, empty heart
chambers echoing. The streets flower
with pain.

If I walk down a boulevard of agony,
if I talk cautious steps upwind,
I will still be sniffed
out, my blonde hair,
my blue eyes

I will hear the sounds of
the mothers and children screaming;
I will fail to describe it.
I will fail as they are beaten down,
domestic agony bound behind locked
doors, three, four, five
weeping children, now grown, striding

down Opalocka with Smith and Wessons
loaded. In their skulls,
their eyes are opening.
While they sleep, their eyes remain
wide, watching
in the dark for allies or strangers,
for policemen, for roaches traveling
through the cracks
in the walls and scuttling on the tiles
of their dingy one bedroom apartments.

The families gather around
the single 19 T.V. They huddle,
watching the politicians speak nothing
of politics; they shred USA today
to start the fire in the fireplace,
which bakes the think cold air
that circulates through their
small home.



Scars Publications


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