This one is a bit more experimental for me. I'm trying my hand at my own kind of narrative poetry. Let it be know that I appreciate those who willingly submit themselves to being my guinea pigs.
I.
"Oh Jerusalem, Jerusalem! Oh unreal city!I.
City of man! City of dust and blood!
Hear, oh hear! The lord your god, the lord your god,
Is bits and pieces of hair and lint in your coat pocket!
The ditch-diggers etch the street with graves.
(Even in death we are not left alone!)
Their sweated backs are pictured much
By the unpensive youths with plastic cellphones.
The old clock-tower was tightly wound,
Its hands that spin without an end,
Coal black swords that carve the hours,
Accompanied by the man in black.
He walks the edge of the gray stone ledge,
The old clock-tower's meager lisp.
He casts down words that crack hatted heads
And shatter, shatter, shatter on the ground.
'Misery, misery! All is misery!'
Croaked the cry from up below.
'Misery! Misery!' raised the voice
That fell onto the passers-by.
'Come down, strange fiend!' cry the passers-by,
'You'll trip. You'll fall. You'll break your head!'
'Broken, broken! All is broken!'
He cried anew and fell as dead.
The grisly gravity did its work,
And dashed him to the earthen floor.
Onlookers scattered; voyeurs did hide,
When he kissed the world and broke to bits.
'Misery! Misery!' his final cry
He did let fly as he fell.
The passers-by, inconvenienced, knew
For sure that he went straight to hell.
'A special hell!' they all agreed
With talks and nods and committees
They formed just then, on the bloody street,
The dead man's head fresh at their feet.
'Misery! Misery!' he still did cry,
And the committees did argue and flatter and lie.
Every man and woman heard the news
Without ever leaving their office seats.
The Internet had pictures, film, and words
Before any feet left the bloody street,
Filling the minds of soulless meat
With knowledgeless information."
-Jon Vowell (c) 2009
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