8th Avenue
By Lou Blodgett
- 183 reads
The sun shines apt and gritty on this stretch of avenue.
Viewed from atop a doughty Schwinn-clone steed.
Across layers of pavement. Like a jawbreaker chewed.
They shouldn’t fix this road. There really is no need.
Don’t chisel down to tertiary brick.
Don’t restore and please don’t gentrify.
This place won’t be swept up very quick.
This neighborhood won’t sprucing up abide.
It’s like no one cares the area is spoiled.
With its bottles, wrappers, bags, discarded naps.
Cans flattened on the road to the gauge of Reynold’s foil.
Straws supporting blossoms of golden arch-ed wraps.
There’s a jail-break from that house of stucco white.
By dogs that are so small that they can’t reach up for a bite.
Like many swarms, eluding any count.
Here comes a tiny Doberman, who leads the pack in bounds.
A fox terrier, chihuahua, and a dauntless chorkie-poo.
With the herd’s a kinda pug. He has papers, kinda, too.
No one let these dogs out, they liberate themselves
to run down the road behind a bike, radiating yelps.
And, in reserve, behind a fence, there upon the lawn,
is a tiny whatzis, hors de combat, cheering on.
It’s a space opera melee. Truly Battlestar Galactic.
Aside from all this spectacle there isn’t any traffic.
Trash passes underneath as all go flying through.
Someone had Tostitos! Another- Mountain Dew.
It’s a school of canine fry. Please don’t ask how many.
If they were fish, the warden’d say: ‘Don’t be keepin’ any’.
They sprint and bark and snarl. High-pitched auditory fog.
Like it all became a nightmare when they filmed for “Mighty Dog”.
They’re all smaller than a breadbox, what damage can they do?
A perhaps distracted someone cares and loves them so, it’s true.
Physics dictates that they’re hindered through their retrogrady barking.
Just hope that they avoid the spokes. There’s no thought of parking.
The breeze and sun can’t be denied. Affirmation tingles.
All pass an ancient duplex, sheathed in tarry shingles.
(Which, throughout September gathered tags from the beginning.
The turf-war trickled to an end, with a firm called Remax winning.)
Mind the pedals, little darlings! The glass and sewer grates!
Where does your territory end? Don’t get home too late.
Avast the bark battalion. You furry yapping horde.
You’ve won the test, go home and rest your little vocal cords.
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