The empty place

Yes, folks, I'm still taking the Monday Poetry Bus, whether it comes around for me or not. That's the thing about poetical busses - you can make your own. Plenty of room left: hop on board!

The guests have left.
The stadium has emptied out
detritus decorates the field
empty popcorn boxes
crumpled plastic cups sticky with beer dregs
cigarette butts
scraps of torn tickets swirl in a sudden november eddy of wind

The lights have been put out
amplifying the echos
of the roaring and laughing crowd that was here so very recently
That filled the world with their voices
and turned the very air into a web of connections
a woman smiling at a man
a child pointing at an escaping balloon
challenges encouragements mockery bravos
being thrown from one to another
They keep each other warm
They keep each other happy
They meet and separate and meet
like a flock of birds
And now they have gone

It is quiet
but for the creaking of a gate
nobody closed the gate, and now it opens and closes in the wind
counting the ghosts as they come and go.


See y'all on the bus next week, when I promise to be over mourning the sad wreck of our big red bus and on to some more cheerful verse. (not least because Monday next I'm On Vacation!!!)
.