A Day in the Life of

 

Todd and me.

 

We were seven or eight.

 

We walked to the horsey-park,

 

We played under the bridge,

a trickle

of a creek ran.

 

A bad teenager came.

 

He pointed a gun at us.

 

"Put your head in the water," he said.

 

Todd and I were allowed 

to go to the park, a block from our house.

  

We grew up as free-range children.

 

"Put your head in the water," he said.

 

That was something we couldn't do.

 

We had been told, specifically,

not to touch the water, it wasn't clean.

 

What to do?

 

I fled up the hill, crying.

Todd followed.

 

By the time we got home

we were on to other things.

 

 

 

 

 

 





Poetry by jim The PoetBay support member heart!
Read 88 times
Written on 2022-06-11 at 03:24

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Alan J Ripley The PoetBay support member heart!
I agree whole heartedly with Tom, love the thought of free-range children running around. Expescially when i think my parents, Would have preferred to have tide their children down.
Always seems to be someone maleficent in our past.
That tries to alter the status quo.
Regards Alan
2022-06-12


Uncle Meridian The PoetBay support member heart!
The contrast between innocence and malevolence here is quite skillful, the diction of "horsey-park" and "bad teenager" being so childlike and guileless --- but still premonitory tension in the terse simplicity of the sentences. This is a memorable poem for all the right reasons.
2022-06-11