A Family Move

those bastards stole
more than a day or two
of your childhood's
sweetest life
in their lassitude,
self-concern….
and monstrous
addiction to strife.

what was once filled with a motley
chaotic parade of Schwinn
and JC Higgins' bikes,
snowballs tossed at busses
and joyful friends with food
(rice krispies coated with parmesan
and caramel sundaes to build a world on),
laugh--tracked tv sets playfully
droning on at night,
became turgid and thickened gray
with stifling fog obiquitous
and heavy on the heart
like a psychiatric ward
laden dark with sorrow
and untranslatable scripts
of stellazine
after an 8.0 earthquake
finally subsides its pounding,
leaving especially the young
wandering numb and mute,
seeing through serrated
cataracts of fear,
more lonesome than songs
can say in words,
walking the sterile earth
strewn with walls broken
down into crazy puzzle pieces,
booze infused shards of glass
from 'Family' liquor stores,
overturned abandoned palm trees,
stand alone phone booths
collapsed onto the streets---
oh, these streets of silent trauma
which string out
straight and so inert
like cracked desert dirt
stretched sad and dumb
and desolate,
going nowhere
after the world
exploded
in front of your tired feet.

it's all become so distant
from what could be called
magic,
god damn littered
with ruined hopes
and goals,
your little brother's life
gone tragic,
horribly incomplete.