Sunday, June 26, 2011

Suburban Nocturne

By Joseph Hesch

Out here, the robins wake me,
going off pre-dawn,
like feathered versions of
the trash collector-bumped car alarms
In the city never could.
Last night, I had to shut
my bedroom window and my drowsy mind
to the screams
of some unknown animal in the jaws
of a nocturnal predator
or maybe in the paws
of furry rapture.
Either way, its plaintive cries set
my teeth on edge and my thoughts
to R-rated dismemberment.
Will I ever become so inured
to the natural sirens of the suburban night
that I was the mechanical howls
of the never-sleeping city?
Some evenings here near the woods
I would trade the all chirps, croaks
and fluffy retorts for the clangs, owooos,
and muzzle reports of my little place
near the home of Ladder Company 23.

2 comments:

  1. Furry rapture! Great! ...I heard the same noises last night, tis the season...

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  2. Methinks whether rustic or urban...all these sounds become white noise after a bit...except of course when something or someone is being dismembered whether city or country.

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