Douglas Polk- Two Poems

Decay

once neighbors on porches as evening falls,
children playing stick ball in the street,
the houses now vacant,
or the streets no longer safe,
people inside with the television screens,
neighbors,
strangers one to the other,
pride nonexistent,
in city, nation,
or state,
porch swings empty across the land,
time filled instead,
with gadgets,
and tweets and texts,
friendships and relationships,
decay and evolve to a business plane,
messages answered or ignored as the mood fits, 
police sirens and screaming,
the only sounds as evening falls.



Summer

jumping off the top  of the  baseball bleachers,
on a dare,
pissing blood for a week,
worrying Dad and Mom,
will discover they raised an idiot,
climbing the maple tree by the back porch,
to watch the neighbor girl undress,
a high school junior,
breasts taut,
nipples hard,
psychedelic underpants,
peace man . . .

getting scraps from the butcher,
with which to fish,
crawdads and catfish,
smelly,
but fried,
not too bad to eat,
a pack of cigarettes,
misplaced,
fell into little hands,
walk a mile,
through desert heat,
to smoke in the priest's old car,
parked in the vacant lot,
behind a row of trees,
a nudie magazine,
ogled,
the women,
not as pretty as the girl next door,
though the breasts much larger,
the religious sticker on the glovebox,
a reminder of the sin,
smoking and thinking sexual thoughts,
worst yet,
in a Catholic priest's old abandoned car,
summer,
a time of sin.