Bonus: Poem #18 for Poetry Month

[nightdog_barks]

Well, I said I'd do this this morning but instead I got caught up in researching something and spent all day looking at medical blogs.

So. This poem is by the same poet as yesterday (Neal Bowers), but the subject matter is quite different. I think we've all known people like this ...



The Kindnesses of Bad Neighbors


They never drive their unmuffled cars
through our begonias
or let their stereo thump
any longer than they care to listen.
They know their howling dog will stop
when he has wound himself
flush against the stake and can barely breathe
and that their kids, in a few years,
will be more interested in shoplifting
than in spray-painting their new vocabulary
on the sidewalk in front of our house,
so they share with us their own forebearance.
Whenever they absolutely must discharge a gun
in celebration or anger or simple idleness,
they try to aim low so the bullet won't carry;
and none of the fires they've set
by accident with cigarettes or overloaded outlets
has ever spread beyond their walls.
When we pass by and see them
beating out a flame
or oiling their pistols on the stoop,
they almost always raise a hand
in their familiar way of greeting.


~ Neal Bowers
Online source here.