unseen art

This is no poetic moment.
The sun may be settling in the sky
on a hot Friday morning,
late July—so hot—I can see the heat,
but there is nothing literary about it.
Birds searching for breakfast, people for parking spots?
No, there is no poem there.
And if anyone should take my water gun on the window sill
aiming at a flag outside as allegory,
they never heard the painful whispers of night
after it’s coughed up a new day, up against the grain of it all.
I have no dog to walk, no shop to open.
I’ve been hoping for a patron, better television stations,
because some things that glitter are gold,
such as characters carved out of life from comic strips
and unseen art, even if they draw flies.
Meanwhile, my next big thing is already happening,
I’ve just been too busy laughing at earthly matters,
attracting accidents, keeping myself in suspense,
trying to get somewhere closer.

John Franklin Dandridge has his master’s degree from Columbia college in poetry. He has a substantial body of poetic works, one finished novel and is working on his second. He is a Chicago native residing in Humboldt Park.