by John Flynn

        Adieu guitar hero summer nights when one-way streets lined with chopper
Harley bikers in leather carousing for blondes detonated the city
        with muffler noise roaring through Kennedy Plaza to steps of City Hall
where they’d line up gleaming polished chrome from all over the state,
        beefy arms in sleeveless leather vests with gang logos.
Cheeseburgers and fries from the silver shoebox on wheels, Haven Brothers Diner
        A Providence Tradition Since 1888 in red on its side.
On the steps of City Hall leafy-brained twerps from South County burbs
        would buy weed and cocaine, convinced nothing would change
their lives far from where rivers reeked like lethal epoxy fumes.
        Mayor Buddy C had his conniptions, claiming no such doings ever went on.
No, Mayor, you were wrong. It was all more sordid than any of us remember.

What speaks of time?
        Wood, brick, the body, and oral traditions. Leveling of old barrooms.
Shifting organs, dissolving marrow. Urban renewal projects, pyramid schemes,
        condo conversions, franchises, one-sided public conversations.
Cherry and Webb, The Outlet, Shepherd’s Department Store with a tea room
        on its first floor trying to be like Harrods of London.
Hip to be like the English. French girls that came each summer to stay with relatives.
        Never see such girls anymore. I listen to neighbors blather on about time.
I get it. I understand their fear and urgency. The heart attack is always waiting.
        Our battered faces aren’t the only chime sounding a lurid past.

I look back on days wasted dreaming of a house by the sea,
        wanting to know the fat men on the hill, an invitation to their bright parties…
Time hasn’t done me in. Time has carried me to love the knife and gun,
        hasn’t slain me yet to obstruct the perfect march of ugliness in my features.
I slice and swerve along through hopeful radiant awakenings.
        I’ll tell my children the struggle with time, if it is a struggle, made me common.
If I don’t no one will, since time doesn’t talk. Time deters and forgets,
        and promises there are comforts on hand, the sound of laughter
heard while walking through a park, a stranger’s eyes full of light
        and cheer, a smirk in return from one jaded survivor to another.

JOHN FLYNN’s newest poetry chapbook, “Wave And Metronome” is now available from Pudding House, www.puddinghouse.com. John’s work has appeared recently, or is forthcoming in Paterson Review, Hot Metal Bridge, Stones Throw, The MacGuffin, and others. His novel, Heaven Is A City Where Your Language Isn’t Spoken is due out in 2010 from Cervena Barva Press. You can download free samples of his published work here.