Graffiti Stains

Hard pavement, grey overall, with cracks filled with tar

Dim lit trees on a country road, he held steady . . .

Cars leapt past beside factories, closed for the night

A glance right

He knew he was not safe

Writing on patches of grey, walls, hard and tall,

Filled with fingernails and hair, lost skin, scabs,

Workers’ entails. A power to defy

Every and all mothers’ cries.

Graffiti stained heart

Shifty lines, a poet’s disgrace

Colored memes, black and white regrets

His mind fell from place to place,

While the suddenness of nothing left

He knew all he knew and he played the part

And laid it all down with a screeching halt

Secure in his faith, a dawned disgrace

God and witness bowed heads straight

Titian bully throws his gait

A glance right

It was not safe . . .

He hit the pavement, with cracks filled with tar.

Dorian LaGuardia

7 January 2019