Lights In the Park (day 1568)

Where I come from, wounded soldiers are hid behind shadows and only come out at night when small dogs are being walked by wobbling, aging men wearing the same thing they’ve worn for 20 years. The leash, however, fits just as it should. I wonder, rather curiously, what sports or video game they’re missing as they pull the mutt home.

When I sit and stare at the business, it rolls by in a drawl so thick, screaming girls in stretch limos seem normal down city streets where younger hip dudes with Chuck Taylors on discard the evening’s steaming pile of dog shit into an overflowing disposal bin painted green.

Lights on a distant sports building shift through the lower half of the color spectrum, causing the young girls white dog to turn a more rusty yellow. I try not to look at her puppy while she ruffles the poop bag. Young white boys talking in a foreign tongue park their father’s white suburban in a permit required zone and pass their joint around as if it’s their first nudie magazine at summer camp.

I sit silently, sipping on my micky of Sailor Jerry’s and pretend there’s nobody I’m thinking of and somebody to walk home to. I left the light on beside the bed to give off some sort of impression anyways. 

20150912 - Ned Tobin - 1

Pushing (day 730)

I roll around waiting for that shit to hit my head
Spinning relentlessly in this uncomfortable bed
I know not what has passed through this body
Just fumes and discarded waste left now
Memories that don’t lead to filled in blanks
It’s crushing, this deep sadness that spins around
The scribbled out pages of stunted thoughts
I work at pulling out words, but only vowels fall out
Shifting around uneasily like a shy cowboy
Fumbling with vices picked up from long hours
Out on the range with thoughts and dreams
I roll around waiting for that shit to hit my head