Carl Miller poems
page 95

Disturbance of the Peace

You’re drunk.
This is not the proper time or place
to express your feelings,
profane and atonal.

An old man in a wheelchair
slowly hand pushes his wheels
up a slight slope to the statue.

A girl in a tight black skirt,
walking backwards facing two friends,
starts hopping and dancing.

from bough to bough of sprawling cypress trees
chasing each other croaking harshly crows

On a hot day’s night,
first crickets of the season
chirping allegro.

Beside the highway,
acres of green corn edged by
yellow sunflowers.

I guess I don’t mind
you landing on my laptop
here in the garden.

I’m a big dangerous thing
who could swat your existence.

What would be ugly
about your stripes and speckles,
your bright orange eyes?

You walk staccato, slowly,
tasting the silver surface.

And then you are gone,
faintly buzzing in the wind
roaring toward autumn.

Garden flowers all
finished blooming this summer.
Bees are drinking weeds.

in a store window
across the grassy plaza
sunset’s golden disk

five wispy branches
atop the bell shaped cypress
mottled gibbous moon

I don’t know who or what I am.
I’m a story from a point of view
who will cease to exist. Then what?

a glass of Pepsi
reflecting angled sunlight
shining sparkle fizz