David Chorlton- Three Poems

A Fellow Pedestrian

 

What she said was:

I might just cut somebody’s throat

so don’t let people near me,

please sir.

                With which

she picked up her little dog, the black

and white one with a red harness,

and held it to her chest

as they crossed the road on red,

the two of them

                         bound tight

against whatever comes.

 

On Phoenix Streets

 

It’s a long walk across the city

when you’ve nobody to talk to

but yourself,

                  the temperature reaches

a hundred, even dry, degrees,

and you’re  overdue on your fines,

unlicensed, unloved, fresh

                                         out of rehab,

searching for the court of ultimate mystery

while the dollar you saved for bus fare

is still a quarter short.

 

The Hoarder

 

His living room is not for living in.

His possessions possess him.

He keeps what he needs

and needs to keep more

than he could ever use. Every magazine

he’s read is stacked

and waiting just in case

he wants to read it again, but he

can never find the one

he’s looking for. His money

is collecting interest somewhere

but he doesn’t miss it

because he lives sparingly

and his currency is the coupons

he clips from the Sunday edition.

Waste not, want not is the creed

by which he lives

and he wants everything

there’s space for

to have and to hold, for richer

or poorer, even though

he’s beyond being able

to tell them apart.

 

 

David Chorlton was born in Austria, grew up in Manchester, England, and lived for several years in Vienna before moving to Phoenix in 1978. Arizona’s landscapes and wildlife have become increasingly important to him and a significant part of his poetry. His Selected Poems from FutureCycle Press appeared in 2014. The shadow side of Vienna provides the core of The Taste of Fog, a work of fiction published by Rain Mountain Press.