Poetry – 2 Poems by Ricardo Moran

Two Poems by Ricardo Moran

 

One Note

This street has one note.

Its beat
taps on angry tongues.
Its tempo
thuds in cars of glue and tape.
Its chorus of blackbirds
propels overhead.

By day, it drives
tree branches to suicide,
where birds flee
to stunted vistas,
and poppies pull out
their roots
to seek sanctuary
in mediocrity.

By night,
this
one
note
embraces
unlit streets,
ugly liquor stores,
auto shops circled
in barbed wire
of gunfire.

Its churches praise it at 420,
with the body of Christ
in one hand,
and a Twinkie,
in the other.

This street is short on vision,
and long
on
this
one
damn
note.

 

I’ve Lost All My Tread

At the wheel,
the driver has fallen asleep
and I, melt against the passenger seat,
my hand reaching for the ignition key.

Your tongue, your cacophony
of how bad things are,
pushes on the accelerator.

I listen to your dirges grow louder,
whose songs and rhythms
of fear
have San Cristobal scrambling
off the dashboard.

The car swerves
to the far right,
to a cliff,

and this fuckin’ seat belt
won’t release.

The thinning hair
on my head,
these splinters
of tread,
cannot protect me
from the wall
before me.

I tug at the door
jammed, locked
with memories.

My arms cross over
my face.
I shut my eyes.
Then,
silence.

 

_______________
Ricardo Moran
www.ricardomoranwriter.com