The Artiste
written by: Eve Dobbins
The art of war
Sickles between my toes
Ticking my sense of time
Stealing the rhododendrons
From the gardens, blood red trickling with the red rose petals running rover
stealing my sensibilities. Like the poet, I am I cringe…
Running interference
Zig- zagging like a football player
Called in from the bench
Numbing all semblance of time
Expressed in soft spoken meters
By harsh old-time coaches
Beating rhythm on players while the crowds sit soft
Pedaling in the grand stands and doing a back step cadence
As the flag flies
over a lazy Southern day…
Hazy heat with a chance of rain
Phone dinging and hearing back from you while sailing
Through the rush hour traffic of no man’s land at street S weaving one way roundabouts
Returning home to wave like a drunken sailor dodging the muddy lines of debarkation of the mine fields
With lined up artillery like facing family
With no boundaries
Lost in the metrics of their own needs
Welding slights as they might
I stand for the flag, I watch the coach
Beaten down by rumors and then I rise
Like the South doing battle once again.
- Playing The Odds - June 29, 2021
- The Artiste - September 1, 2020
- Laughing Africa - July 18, 2020
