STIRRING UP THE BOTTOM
We have started a poetry revival in historic Shockoe bottom and shall continue to stir it here on the 
World Wide Web.

 

Life Begins With a Mistake

 

Lights cascade off rooftops, and dormers,

Elves chatter recordings, hammer and blink

We follow lost animals onto new streets, to

Gardens of tacky delight, electrical charms,

Roadside Xmas, miniature golf of the mind,   

Delusions visible all the way from heaven.

 

In every gray cloud of confusion there’s a

mucus lining, it’s bound to get you a laugh.

Somebody spent all their lottery money on

Shiny objects, misspent youth wandering

A thousand hells in search of the perfect

Instrument for taming the dangerous dark.

 

In this alley a fountain trickles, but no one

Drinks, the famous animal fountain is part

Of the nightmare paving of history made

By ever circling animals, taking their fill to

Battle or pulling the dead into our memory.

This spot assigned to lovers of all animals. 

 

My creation, my fountain begins with thirst.

A spring, no doubt cursed by someone I

Never knew,  I come from the source of life,

The same as anyone, tracking wild illusion

To a place where people still gather to tell

How the big one jumped out and roared.

 

You still celebrate with lantern lights or

Trips to the soul filling trickle of backwater.

History is a disturbing dream from which I

Run, the snake charmer, straying animals,

Eternal temptress who brought me to this

Hell of bar band gigs just to be in a poem.   

©Jimmy Warner, 2002