"We Lonely Walkers"
Nick Guarino
We Lonely Walkers
“It is not enough that thought should seek to realize itself; reality must also strive towards thought.”
-Marx
Who writes the elegies of lost lavender and broken monologues?
These aren’t the flowers I remember,
Giving their perfume, to mix
with imagination and artifice.
And here, now
There is no imagination
Is no artifice
Not in these things.
There Rooted in rotting memory,
bleeding violet, in those bright corners
longing for shadow.
My eyes strain themselves
Staring
Until we are consumed by shadow
Hills speckled with little dots of violet
have no concept of ideal.
They have forgotten winter--
have forgotten all.
Spring happens in isolation.
We walk alone.
Walk without speaking through the buzz of cicada-streetlights and
the coyote’s howl.
Me in my gravel shoes and you…
The sound of a yelp.
Night and star and hamburger cheese kiss our disinterested cheeks
Had anyone noticed?
The coyotes snarl gnawing on what remains of
a might-have-been birthday present,
a companion,
a little fur bundle,
a Fido or a Princess,
(or maybe a Baxter)
a whimpering mess,
a silent mound,
the content of a yellow bow neck collar,
the caged pastoral,
someone’s domestic boogieman, burglar, and tourist repellent,
someone’s personal piece of nature, to break up the monotony of a suburbia surrounded by
nature.
We walk, silently gliding over shuffling feet.
The street sweeper should come tomorrow--
dusty shoes--
I’ve been using a compass to leave the tube.
The coyotes howl…
All I have had and all that is left are questions;
Shards of images and thoughts
How do you write a suicide note?
How can any remains capture a desire to unexist?
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