The evening air a sponge soaked
in Magnolia sweat. There’s no escape
from southern belles in denial.
No no reprieve no baptisms in the rain
but still we look for meaning carved
in antebellum inspired architecture.
Nothing here dies except old men
and debutant dreams.
Let us wander these secret gardens
hand in hand unhurried
by the empire-waisted dresses
listing away from the rising moon
under the arms of living oaks
holding up grief-laden clouds.
Tag Archives: Charleston
I Learned People Watching from My Dad, Who Would Sit on a Bench and Wait in Malls and Amusement Parks
Looking at the picturesque surroundings, I want to strip away the years like asbestos and old lead paint, see it pure and dirty. When the proprietor of the Thai restaurant is a little rude I don’t expect different. Vape shops like the one in view from the porch crop up everywhere like kudzu, used car lots, beauty parlors in Eastern Kentucky — but I trust them far less since they insist on pretending they sell pipe tobacco and cigars. Flocks of dirty blondes wearing muted colors and sunglasses that cover carefully buffed cheekbones walk by. They do not look up or speak to me. I want to come back in the winter and be diverted from paths in the swampland park by sunbathing alligators. I think someday I will walk into the ocean and dissolve like soda ash.
Front porch on a Back Alley in Charleston, SC
We ponder the trees in an undying city
how the street must have looked 30 years ago
drinking coffee, me a fat middle-aged man
wearing his white undershirt on the porch
workmen roll by and nod acknowledgment
the suntanned gentrified class saunter by earbudded sunglassed dressed for lattes or pilates
the smell of the water twists around the breeze
in the manner of a familiar lover
the alley sunspackled
as the cicadas wake for the day:
an army of garbage cans always ready
for the remainders of civilization.
River City Mick 