Pedestrian, Longitudinal John & The Manor of Hollow Morrow by Garrett Souliere
Pedestrian
Waltzing over piano patios
Ripples in the pavement glitter.
Palm in my pocket, the keys
Slip; lets sound leak like
Light through cracked windows.
At the point where it starts,
I find somewhere else to go.
Rambled scars scatter
Silhouettes
Shamble in random
Directions, frayed-
Ends.
Sweaty citizens callously carousel.
I pause to pass a quick feel.
Stop to scratch some sense.
Flowers smell,
So,
Great,
I guess.
A red palm halts me;
Among the fish, I keep
My eyes closed.
In my mind's landscape,
I scrape downtown down
Clean to the bone: brick
Buildings bloom, cobblestone
Roads rip parked cars in rows -
An oasis of pavement wide open,
Surface cracked broken by the cold.
While the city sits in silence
Night grows, the lights on
The sidewalk signs; blink, switch:
People watch, then walk home.
Longitudinal John
I take parts of the world
And make them into pieces of me.
I claim a bay near me I barely see
As some form or thing
Resembling an identity.
I merely mirror my meridian;
I admire horizontal harmony.
All I lost at sea,
Comes calling back constantly.
I transpose earth to bone,
Insert dirt beneath flesh,
Mix blood in with dust.
Soiled ley lines laid
Upon buried landmines
Under arm cell walls,
Veins filled follow
Rooted knuckles
Into knotted fingers.
I found a hometown
Gets better
The farther you go,
The further you will see -
You can always come home.
Reborn by a river
Inside a city,
I saw a big bright world,
And I made it my own.
The Manor of Hollow Morrow
A useless edifice.
A waste of space, like a paperweight;
A spine that shines silver in the sun.
A bold face, as if to say, "for emphasis";
A pronounced self-announcement.
A flex of angles, a test of skill;
Architecture arced for pleasure -
Sufficiently purposeless.
At the base, I crane my neck
To ask who's dream this once was.
Walls of the castle
Covered in slimy ivy;
A green grip on the grey.
The thorns hold the whole abode
Enclosed in a bushel of briars.
The drawbridge gapes open,
Held by one chain, the other broken,
Guts rotten by rust. The prone
Wooden gate stinks, sodden
Swollen rain-bristled splinters;
Yet the bridge is firm for feet
Should one want to enter -
The halls are empty echoes.
Both sides, candelabra-lined;
Wilted wicks, waxy hollows.
A draft pours cold air clean
Through your bones like a knife.
The towers, too, are all shattered.
Crumbled clumps of boulders,
Columns of cobbled limestone,
Built but long bygone,
Detritus gathering moss and mold.
Buried below, by what they hold.
In the courtyard, there's a fountain:
In front, a painting on an easel.
A landscape of a mountain.
In the background,
Over the summit, the sunset.
Lavish lavender blooms
Hanging hardly overhead,
Shading the valley in
The foreshadow of a plummet.
“All of these poems come from a manuscript I am compiling in a similar spirit to trash to treasure’s mission – I am revising and reclaiming years of my idle, impulsive free writes and polishing them into something that means more.”
Garrett Souliere is an author, editor, pet parent, and a bad painter. His work has appeared in Narrow and Bourgeon, and he won 1st place in Poetry for ECU’s Rebel 55 magazine. He also holds the pleasure of operating Quibble.Lit, a literature review serving its authors and audience.