4.2 – Preacher’s Train

June 25, 2009

Preacher pulls a half-dozen
commandeered grocery carts
full of flattened packing boxes
the size of fat coffins,
lashed each to each with a rope
long and old enough for hanging.
In profile they make a 
mountain range in miniature,
set piece for his private play
whose lines he calls out plaintively
everywhere he stops,
palms out for unseen alms.
In the morning mist rolling
from the leech filled pond
dotted with the rise of
doomed stocked fish
he takes hold of the last
length of rope, fists tight
around the makeshift handle
of splintered baseball bat and
begins his day’s travel from one
sodden shrine of detritus to another,
his burden goading and
pulling him like a pack of dogs.
Preacher leans behind,
frozen in a constant fall,
talking to the sky or god or both,
trying to control the careening carts,
trying to drive his own descent.

[pad 4.2 - 6/24/09]

Tags: pad, poetry, Writing