Catwalk
I walk from open grass fields into
the amalgam of glass and concrete,
obscuring sky with sharp angles,
vacant buildings, until the slender
brown footpath through
pawpaw trees and poke leads
me past rushing canal waters
down a ladder, ten feet to silver
steel and iron bars. A two foot wide
grid extends like a mirage into the distance
above a forty inch diameter
metallic colon, flushing waste
somewhere down river.
I stroll lazily beneath
iron black arches creating optical illusions,
train tracks from mountains headed to the sea,
creosote’s odor, coal train’s screeching
wheels overhead. Watch buzzards circle.
It is Sunday or any day of the week,
the scene is the same along the pipeline,
look left, wild life – five men, river sand in their hair,
glazed eyes, some unconscious, but
I am not a ghost, keep walking turning my back to
strange men with pony tails and women whose
weak perfume mingles with southern breezes.
The catwalk ends,
lowers me to boulders of cinnamon
and chocolate, hollows carved slowly
by liquid knives, I climb into clear water.
My feet slip on the silt, one foot too far
I’m swept under rapids.
For a few seconds I lose my fear of death,
my body cools, my heart doesn’t stop beating,
I emerge under azure skies, green trees,
the white sun blazes.
…..
This poem is from the book Bone, Gristle and Fat by Brian King (Finishing Line Press), and can be found at https://www.finishinglinepress.com/product/bone-gristle-and-fat-by-brian-king/
Brian King writes from his experiences as a husband, father, brother, friend, student, critic, fortune 500 computer engineer, consultant, technologist, hitchhiker, adventurer, painter, guitar player and parishioner. With a B.A. in Mathematics from Albany University and a Master of Fine Arts in Painting from Virginia Commonwealth University he brings a unique background to poetry. Raised in Syracuse, New York he eventually moved to Richmond, Virginia in 1982. His parents had a library with a complete set of Shakespeare, poetry anthologies, history and novels by Faulkner, Cheever and Updike. He was exposed to the articles in The New Yorker and Newsweek. As an undergraduate the books outside of required texts were outnumbered by those of Vonnegut, Wolfe, Tolkien, Updike, Tom Robbins and other contemporary authors. He had two decades of writing business proposals and technical documents before writing his first poem. After reading Spiritual Pilgrims – Carl Jung and Teresa of Avila he sensed a deeper need to write what he sensed and felt in the form of short poems. That led to joining the poetry organization River City Poets of Richmond, participating in critiques and public readings. After surveying one hundred and thirty poems he chose and edited fifty one for the collection titled – Bone, Gristle and Fat.
The Paddock Review 