Twisted

Cherry

By maudsy

Sun, 20 Jan 2008
  • 1338 reads
1 comments
 

When I saw him trip and fall I stalled

Gawping at his efforts to raise himself, pissed,

Straddled between two happy hour bars,

Splayed across the gutter

Immobilizing the impotent traffic

 

A cacophony of flesh and chrome

Swerving around the human chicane

Bags and briefcases arcing away in aseptic orbits

Hoh masks, eyeless, prepared to 

Deflect unpredictable aggression

 

I tried to honour them but my craven eyes,

Driven by inherent schadenfreude,

Sought him out

Earning their reward as he rose, Lazarus-like,

Grappling with gravity and headed my way

 

Instantly, then, the portcullis withdrew

Within my walled-city mind

And that ungainly gait

Perverse, yet true,

That guides him back to safety

Obliterated those didactic codes

 

I ran toward him, a parody of humanity

Desperate for the anesthesia of forgiveness

“Are you hurt? Can I help you across the road?” I begged.

“It’s okay” he said, absolving me. “My legs are twisted”

“Only your legs” I replied

“How lucky”

Certificate U
Poem
The Bitterest Pill
Miscellaneous

Comments

Submitted by Sooz006 on
Wow, fantastic. This one really hit a nerve with me. While in prague this year we saw the same man twice. the first time was in the early hours of the morning and we giggled as he bounced from wall to wall and had terrible problems staying upright. The second was at mid-day and we realised the poor man wasn't drunk, he had some awful motor neurone or balance aflliction. I would love to have talked to him to find out what it was. I don't suppose many people talked to him, but he was bouncing from wall to wall with purpose and it would have been rude to stop him in the street for possibly goulish purposes. I thought about him a lot that week, how he goes about job interviews, how he is accepted by his peers. I don't think I'll ever forget that man and this poem brought him back to me again perfectly. Beautifully written.