December 2017
David Chorlton
DavidChorlton@centurylink.net
DavidChorlton@centurylink.net
From 1971 until 1978 I lived in Vienna, and began writing poetry for no reason I understood at the time. In 1976 I married Roberta, and after much debate we decided to move to her home town of Phoenix in 1978. I began to use the local library and sought out the company of other poets. Having recently moved from near the city center, I look back on that area as one where the number of homeless people has become an integral part of street life. Back in 1980, a homeless person was a relatively unusual presence, and from the front window of our first house I often watched a lady who wore a raincoat and swung her arms as she walked, stopped and washed her hair in our lawn sprinkler. For several years she would pass our house and at a later point we realized that she had just disappeared. http://www.davidchorlton.mysite.com
The Stroller
Between trees and madness, I carry my raincoat.
The streets are warm with me,
benches sag with my ghost, my woolen hat
is a green signal above the silence
I pull behind me.
The people I pass don’t know
what I mean to them. Their lives
are line drawings in a child’s pale book,
I am the juice of berries
coloring them.
Intersections collide when I cross, I am
the monument to unknown soldiers
of living, who sweat the sidewalks
of America, to be mentioned in diaries
like a rare bird out of its hemisphere.
I count people. Today I saw
one thousand six hundred and seventy three.
The Stroller
Between trees and madness, I carry my raincoat.
The streets are warm with me,
benches sag with my ghost, my woolen hat
is a green signal above the silence
I pull behind me.
The people I pass don’t know
what I mean to them. Their lives
are line drawings in a child’s pale book,
I am the juice of berries
coloring them.
Intersections collide when I cross, I am
the monument to unknown soldiers
of living, who sweat the sidewalks
of America, to be mentioned in diaries
like a rare bird out of its hemisphere.
I count people. Today I saw
one thousand six hundred and seventy three.
©2017 David Chorlton
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