Friday, May 9, 2014

FOR THE GREATER GOOD OF THE FEW




THE UN/RELUCTANT CHESS PIECE
 
A new day is rising,
burnt orange spackled with pink hues
turning to goldenrod yellow
evolving as it will,
bright light of a new day birthed.

Standing in a line
stretching
out over the horizon,
the woman at the hard ass
honed edge front  
thinks maybe
if she could grab that sun,
she’d pawn the dawn for cash money
keep her faux silver and glass diamond earrings
until tomorrow when new needs
dictate there’ll be new things
brought to the three ball shop
where even the damned darkness can be hocked.

“Hardcore Gold Pawn
would pay a lots of money”
she thought
“if that sun was in this vault.”

Course ninety days later
when times is better,
she’ll come back,
rescue that old sun
from the bin in the back.
Return that borrowed against time,
pay the vigorish along the way,
for you know it
the sun be returned
to make itself another day.

She reaches for the sun
as it rises to view,
wonders why she can’t quite grasp,
taking that shit from all;
for her own.
C’mon bitch you belongs to me too, motherfucker.
Your light is only a loan;
you’ll have your ass back
riding high in the sky,
hog white bright burning down on me,
before you even know you’s gone.

She touches it,
warm slick shit on her cool fingertips,
trying to garb that third ball.
the crowd behind her sees
reaches out too, won’t let her lone.
Wanting to mortgage a future too!

One that never seems to arrive,
they start to push and drive,
mayhem breaks out,
someone slices no one,
to hell and gone
not knowing why.  
God knows fightin’ & fuckin’s
the only free kinds of fun

Oh the noise as the surge swallows all form of order,
as all reach for or are trampled by a crowd
not recognizing the only thing with any life
is beyond them, out of touch...until—

The sound of the lock snicking and clicking
as the key’s turned,
order restored, line re-formed,
lady at the front rushes to the third window over.
The dawn forgot this day at the pawn shop.

“How much you give me for these fuckin earrings?
I paid two thousand dollars for?”
A new day in this place begun,
a new race to the pawn shops windows won,
and still outside people are orderly
(Security)
as they contemplate how much of a loan they get,
if they could just pawn the useless urban dawn.

© M Durfee
5.9.2014

12 comments:

  1. ack. the dawn is worth at least as much as one more day...maybe there is no hope in that...for some...i figure it is one more shot to get something right...even if only in verse ...ha...and even then only sometimes.

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    1. It doesn't have to be clean Brian to project the image. Good lord, the slums are ever a vulgar place.

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  2. Very powerful, this. Frightening in its hyper realism.

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    1. Charles this is a slice of the pie in front of me.

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  3. Ages ago I roomed with someone like that. I'm betting she's dead by now. Lost touch with her immediately. Can't even remember her name.

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    1. I try to never know their names Alice, it's enough to do to keep the sun rising over my own.

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  4. What is my dawn worth? Not enough for a two bit pawn shop to afford. I love the way your mind works, my friend.

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    1. Thank you Candace, who says bastardization of language and perversion of reality has no place? Definitely a Detroit thang!

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  5. Clever storytelling Mark ! You blend the metaphor of sun with hard reality of pawning our jewelry or getting by with life ~ And thanks for sharing a bit of your grandmother in my blog post ~ Happy weekend ~

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    1. Grace people will do whatever they think they have to do to ensure their own survival regardless of who is trampled. *shrug* I like standing and watching, I know my fate already.

      Granny was a hipster before being hip was cool.

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  6. Brilliant! People sell their souls for a buck these days.

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  7. Mark, life is ever the hustle. xo

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So Walking Man I was thinking...