old mr. donovan walked up to my ma
the other day and asked her if she had seen his dog
the one-eyed lazy son-of-you-know-what
that had stolen his pork chop right off of his plate the night before
she said no
old mr. donovan just gave a sigh
looked past her like maybe the dog-thief
was behind her or down the street a ways
he turned to leave
his shadow retreating before he did
my ma watched him- she knew he wasn't really
upset about the pork chop
he just wanted his dog to come home
poor mr. knutsen
he went out to get his newspaper
and the mailman found him
his body half on the porch
the other half in the wet morning grass
we wondered what would happen to his cats
and how such a thing like this
could happen to
poor mr. knutsen
i used to mow the lawns around my neighborhood
get maybe 5 bucks
and sometimes more if i raked up leaves
crazy old man lockhart would run after me
when i got sort of ornery and mowed in circles
my aunt eloise (we always called her
aunt el) told us kids about the time she slept
with the bank manager to secure a new loan
for her and uncle mike's first house
she said she felt bad about it later on
but that sometimes you just had to do things
you weren't very proud of
my cousin the great horned toad
(that's what we always called her)
got accepted into some ritzy college and now
it's all we hear about from mom and aunt bess
(the great horned toad's mother)
it's unbearable really
who knew she was that smart
our dentist was working his way over
to the AC club and on the way in
he got stung by a bee
not five minutes later he was face down
in his pretzels
that was a sad day
i swear, my cousin ray looked exactly
like little joe cartwright and everywhere he went
people would start to hum the bonanza theme song
and some smart aleck would make clip-clopping
sounds with his hands and man, my cousin got so mad
one time he shaved all the hair off his head and got a lip
piercing well that quieted things down a whole bunch
a bunch of us neighborhood kids would hang out behind
the old box factory listening to jimi hendrix
we thought all along the watchtower was the best song he ever wrote
then timmy’s older brother told us bob dylan wrote that song
he kinda snickered a little as he turned to leave
*
Walkabout (w/ Panda Bear Noah Lennox). - Atlas Sound
Regina Green is a poet and therapist. She appears in the online literary magazine Breadcrumb Scabs, A Little Poetry, Cahoots Magazine and physiognomy in letters as well as the poetry blog sites Bolts of Silk, Thirteen Myna Birds and A Handful of Stones. She is also included in two Spiraling poetry collections published through lulu.com. Regina never capitalizes but is a good speller. Poetry is the blossom on her stem.
Street art by cern.
Photo by Adam Lawrence.
Walkabout is taken from the forthcoming release (October 20th) from Atlanta's Atlas Sound, Logos. Noah Lennox is a member of Animal Collective and is also known as Panda Bear.
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