Flicker

[rejectomorph]

Bright moon and wind bring darting shadows and flickering light under the trees. I might have heard some animals in the yard, but I can't be sure, the wind fills night with so many vagrant noises. All those skittering leaves going somewhere, me just listening to them go. When acorns clatter on rooftops I start, even though I know what I am hearing. It's all so much the way I imagine bones would sound falling in a heap.



Sunday Verse

The Tunnel

by Mark Strand


A man has been standing
in front of my house
for days. I peek at him
from the living room
window and at night,
unable to sleep,
I shine my flashlight
down on the lawn.
He is always there.

After a while
I open the door
just a crack and order
him out of my yard.
He narrows his eyes
and moans. I slam
the door and dash back
to the kitchen, then up
to the bedroom, then down.

I weep like a schoolgirl
and make obscene gestures
through the window. I
write large suicide notes
and place them so he
can read them easily.
I destroy the living
room furniture to prove
I own nothing of value.

When he seems unmoved
I decide to dig a tunnel
to a neighboring yard.
I seal the basement off
from the upstairs with
a brick wall. I dig hard
and in no time the tunnel
is done. Leaving my pick
and shovel below,

I come out in front of a house
and stand there too tired to
move or even speak, hoping
someone will help me.
I feel I'm being watched
and sometimes I hear
a man's voice,
but nothing is done
and I have been waiting for days.

Comments

[daisydumont.livejournal.com]

i've been watching too much of The X-Files and Supernatural -- the poem creeps me out! what a punch-line, though. wow.

[rejectomorph]

Nobody captures the sense of being caught in a nightmare quite the way Mark Strand does.