A Disjointed Street Poem

The street is full of cell-phone zombies; I’m grateful that my parents didn’t murder me, and for other small blessing; content to be this moving figure In a badly sketched landscape. Liquor store servers always make a point of saying ‘have a nice day,’ they are professionals, they know you are not buying all that booze for a backyard party with your many friends. The bookstore is lit-up like a Christmas tree. It does not sell the kind of books I want to read, my life story is out of print anyway. The stores end about here, the road wanders off into a more aggressively painted cityscape where well-chewed over words are buried in gawping mouths. I wish I liked this grey, spit-stained strip mall, It’s not a mean place, just trodden down by the weight and blare of too much festive trampling. My inner Grinch is showing up, my jolly smile Is stitched to a masked and hooded mind. Going home I write these words inside my head as if they had just now been spoken.