Galesburg, Ward 6

I don't know these people
but I know of them,
they remind me of Kate
sitting on her usual bench
pants down
legs straddled
wearing her period
like a brand new coat.

Her only real redemption
is her innocence.
and although she can't eat
with a spoon,
or swallow a pill
or drink from a glass,
she knows how to masturbate,
and does it continuously.

This is where Kate came from.
And in a sense,
where she belongs.

As I roam these halls,
I picture her
in her desperate silence,
bobbing back and forth,
shoulders hunched and head cocked,
unable to realize
her own abandonment.

Trees

Shadybrook was quite a place.

A tree-lined facade
with a car in every driveway
and food on every table,
its peacefulness sometimes interrupted
by a screaming kid
being beaten
for some unknown crime.
His identity was hidden from the street
under cover, veiled
by lush green elms.

And the trees never lied.
Instead they stood in silence.
Protecting private indiscretions
of the mythical American Dream --
a dream that took until it hurt
and only gave when it drew blood

What the trees concealed
the children's faces broadcasted.
The bruises and broken bones
and black eyes on dirty faces
challenged the innocence,
and begged for the security
of the tall green sentries.

Lives were made and broken
in Shadybrook,
with its picture perfect lawns
fronting lives of quiet desperation,
its secrets never compromised
sheltered safe
behind the trees.

Union

White wind whipping
shifting sand and snow
across a barren terrain,
butted by mountains
sped by plains
a barren beauty of time
yet profoundly timeless.

In stone cold silence
the earth moves.
Bending, moving, shaping the horizon
where earth meets sky
and light pierces the darkness
elements meet, working together
in a moment of union.
Nothing goes unchanged
although nothing stays the same.

Lonely souls collide
in crowds afraid to blend
searching for meaning
praying for wisdom
begging for relief
from divinity unseen
yet never seeing God,
suffering through a reality
forced upon them by a thought,
planted and cured,
by years of aching silence.

I am not lost in this empty space
so full of human heart.
That union is a part of me
in some spot unseen.
I sense its breath upon my face,
its essence on my skin,
its spirit inside of me,
and long for a traveler
to melt into
who has been in me forever.

Shifting, bending, ever changing
together, separate
growing up, moving down
to the depths of my soul
I feel it creeping through my being
like edging snow

through heavy timber.

The Frontage Road

Cars and semi trucks
speed by on four lanes
to and from
here and there
like lines of ants
to far off hills
on the new pavement
that laid this road to waste

The ghosts who haunt
Joe's Gas & Eats
watch time fly by
doing eighty five
They know the insignificance
of old highways
no one sees them
but they are there
going somewhere

Along the way
fat rolling hills
covered with tufted scrub
hide lonely houses, once new
still breathing but beaten
from peak sweeping winds
that batten off the prairie
The will to live here
was stronger than steel
until an interstate
opened the range

Aloneness envelopes me
despite the passing cars
the frontage road seems invisible
I observe those
unaware of me
on the old road going nowhere
I see them all
but they can't see me
The faster they go
the more I disappear
just like Old Joe himself

Robert was short and fat
and he never ate pork
It was against his religion

His mother looked just like him
and held the same acrid sweet smell
as her only living son
She was just as crazy
as he ever was

Robert knew religions
he knew them more than well
His round red faced pressed
with agitated curiosity
as he asked
no -- demanded
to now which one
was the "right" one

He paced the floor
hour by hour
with a fanatical impatience
and a search for "Truth"
For someone so retarded
his morbid persistence
in his search for God
was admirable

Of course, we couldn't tell
him the answers.
We all knew less than him!
And besides,
religion was not
in our job descriptions.
All we could do was wait
until the Thorazine kicked in
and Robert forgot
all about God

March 2001
Copyright Andie Bennett