Defeated by the city

· by · in dVerse, poetry. ·

Cars, passing, their headlights
illuminating the cadaver
of autumn’s last hedgehog
and our neighbour’s daughters
bury the hedgehog
among the wet leaves in the little park
opposite to our buildning
I listen to them sobbing
walking to the bar for a nightcap where
left on the sidewalk
the butt of a cigarette, lipstick-stained
part of a shopping list (unreadable)
faeces from a mid-sized dog
that I almost step in,
“damn the blue-haired witch in number seven”
I see her with her mutt,
wobbling on her way to my bar
In her wake, waves of Chanel no 5
and a faint echo of
leaving stiletto heels.
I turn around,
unwilling to confront her,
I will open up the wine I saved
for any unknown date,
I tiptoe past the dumpster where
rats, dusk-unashamed
feasting on slices of pizza
(pepperoni and capers)
depriving me of appetite, defeated
from desire I will rest
listening to the nauseating reek
of my downtown’s slow decay.

AI image created with Bing

Laura hosts dVerse MTB where our task today is to fit fragments of poetry into a complete poem. My choice was to use my own fragment poem as input, and the lines I used are italized above.

June 13, 2024

25 responses to “Defeated by the city”

  1. You’ve successfully hyper-sensitized me to the city’s odors and sights! What an imagery rich patching of fragments into a whole, an unholy indictment of “downtown’s slow decay.”

  4. you’ve created a non appetising but very visual topping and blended it to a base of fragments imperceptibly ~ was struck especially by the echo of the leaving stilettos

  6. Made me smile. Bjorn. I used Bing and AI to find my illustration also. I will remember the rats for a long time.

    ..

  7. Those last two lines sum it up quite nicely, I think! Have you seen the movie Willard? I think there was an older version, I’ve only seen the more recent one. The rats made me think of it.

  8. My goodness gracious!!! You have quite expertly created one stunning poem from bits and pieces of poems from “past productions!”

  9. Expert blending of new and old Björn! The quandary of living in towns – we recognize neighbours but don’t necessarily have anything to do with them and so insulated from social responsibility…

  11. Nauseating host of deterioration that would spoil all but the vermins’ appetites. I had to laugh at the blue-haired witch who doesn’t clean up after her pet. I hope this is 100% fictional as far as your neighborhood goes!

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