Glaciers Created This Lake (standard:poetry, 638 words)
Author: Paddy65	Added: Dec 06 2003	Views/Reads: 3226/2	Story vote: 0.00 (0 votes)
A poem about urban areas, raverkids and lakes.

Glaciers Created This Lake

The lake sits resolute,
undaunted by the boats, swimmers and garbage
who nestle on its sturdy backside like obese men
snoring on an old, trusty davenport
and faces the resplendent architecture of Victorian lakeside property,
unimpressed.

It glances at the steel, cubist, high-rise urban dreams
of the late democratic machine mayor
with indifference, smugly taking solace in the fact
that they one day will fall
and be consumed and digested into its underbelly,
seeking refuge with other vagrant sea life of its dark ocean floor,
while its waves eternally crash into the beach.

At dawn, it stares thoughtfully 
at the hordes of vinyl, metallic party kids
of the Montrose rocks,
fresh off an exhausting yet enlightening sojourn
into electric slides, synthetic horse tranquillizer stupors
and Frankie Bones in a remote, northwest Indiana warehouse
living out their dream of a cultivated, chemical egalitaria,
now seeking one final fix and an orange sunrise
before sleeping for 48 hours straight.

For some of the Montrose kids,
their fix comes from the Old West
where, at Jackson and Keeler,
menthol-smoking merchants lurk on the sidewalk,
stepping over supplies found at blood-donation centers and crocheting factories,
dodging dazed and half-toothed tetrageniarians who resemble octogenarians.
The merchants accost slow-moving cars and dart their eyes,
looking for rollcage 
to illuminate the dark hopelessness of the city at any moment.
Scarcely two digit in age
patient, ready, waiting to ascend out of the rank and file
to buy diamond rims, golden systems and other things
not usually afforded to the Jackson and Keeler gulag.
They solicit tickets
out of the cracks and potholes of their neglected city streets,
relying on their wits, common sense and guts
to traverse the ladder, up and up
towards the generalissimo.

The Montrose kids drive into Jackson and Keeler,
erect with excitement yet paralyzed by fear,
conspicuous in their pallor and minivan.
After all, this was the Old West,
where there were six-shooter shootouts between bandits and sheriffs
and sultry harlots roamed the street.
They peaked out of their car window
as if it was a movie screen
whence after finishing their tubs of popcorn
could drive home after the picture show.
Indeed, they did not stay long enough to manifest any sociological postulates
of these ghetto guinea pigs
or to commiserate or take in the local color,
for fear of trigger happy bandits
and the suspicious eyes of sheriffs wondering
what these Mayflower descendants were doing in such a place
and bolted for the anonymity of the highway
upon receiving their 5-hour pieces of mind and 24 straight hours of sleep.
The highway was their passage back to the unreal reality
of their peace and love eroticism of rocks, northwestern Indiana warehouses
and back seats of Dodge Rams.

The need to journey to Northwestern Indiana to engage in their rituals
came about when the daughter of the son of the democratic machine mayor
was caught by a sheriff participating in one.
The son was now mayor with a machine of his own
and he banned such rituals in his vast city proper.
From his fortified palace, he assesses what lies in his aegis.
The steel, concrete, the flesh.
Partitioning it, creating it, destroying it.
He looks upon his father's steel, cubist, high-rise urban dreams with pride 
beaming upon the phalanxes marching intently with attaché case
at dream's feet.
Jailing bandits, increasing margins, organizing parades, wiping brows
managing the circuitry of the city, they hope
to traverse the ladder, up and up
towards the generalissimo.

Meanwhile, their sons and daughters
fresh from spending allowances at Jackson and Keeler,
lie on the Montrose rocks in a love feast,
for a couple hours thinking straight and dreaming
and contenting themselves at the shores of the lake
who looks on them with a sarcastic wink,
perhaps knowing something they don't.

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