The Town That Angered Sky (16 Poem Anthology)

Tick Tock, Tick Tock, Dong
28-2-16

The Town that Angered Sky
Is a place time’s forgotten it could ever reach.
The clock atop the tower stands at six and rests at twelve;
An old man made mad by constant questions;
A master tricksman hypnotising all
With his pendulum’s rhythmic dance.
The bats beat the bells in the belfry
With wings wound round cogs and gears,
But time sits in the corner refusing to come out and play;
“This old man, he has none, can’t keep time with bells or drums.”

Time forgets its purpose in the Town that Angered Sky,
As residents meander melancholy through crosshatched streets;
From drink to drink, from drink to dust,
From dust to grave;
Where Mr Time sits atop the steeple tricking you into believing
That you have another moment here to endure.
The bats beat with wooden wings upon the head of their master Time:
“This old man, he once had cause, can’t keep up ‘cos now he’s lost.”

The Town that Angered Sky
Is a place where the forgotten go to live out their imprisonment;
Maybe my misfortunes provide your entertainment
As your misfortunes provide mine.
Slaves to time, his people pray to the gods of old to bring him back;
How do they know where to go otherwise
If the pendulum doesn’t tick, tock, tick, tock, dong!

Tick, tock, tick, tock, dong!
Tick, tock, tick, tock, dong!
Tick, tock, tick, tock, dong!
 
Death’s Eggs
6-3-16

The Town that Angered Sky
Is a place where Death walks freely amongst his people.
“How do you do Mrs Baker – only 52 days left!”
He shouts out to his charges reminding them
That their penance can do nothing to alter this fact:
The town will die in 52 days –
All inhabitants, animals, plants, nature…gone.
Wiped off the face of the world with a mushroom bang,
Sent to get rid of the old so that the new can build bunkers
And grow crops in diseased soil.

The Town that Angered Sky
Is a place Death knows intimately.
“I’ll have the usual please Suzie.”
The waitress brings him his blackened toast,
And burnt eggs so rubbery death will bounce them 666 times
Before putting even one bite into his mouth.
“Perfection Suzie, perfection…and it’s only 52 days now you know.”
Nobody dares question Death;
Rumours abound that there will be a sole survivor,
And as each hopeful serves their inevitable master they wonder:
Will it be me?
 
Child-like Wonder
6-3-16

In The Town that Angered Sky the church stands forgotten,
A relic of the past in a town that now worships Death.
The steeple sits silent,
The pulpit perpetuates pre-emptive paralysis of the soul,
And the preacher in the pews mews his message to nobody.
The parishioners prescribe greatness to a god other than God,
And Death reigns supreme since his sweet revival;
“Only 51 days now,”
He jokes with the worshippers who would whisper their woes
To a priest with no ears to hear,
If the priest persisted in listening.
“Only 51 days and then you can come home to me.”

The bells in the belfry have grown bats so bold,
That they burst forth in fearless freedom each night
Ready to suck sweet blood;
No bells ring forth these days…
The bats beat the last bell ringer 51 days ago
And there is no point in replacing a relic of ages past.
There are very little sweet sounds in the Town that Angered Sky.
Death whistles a warbling note now and then,
But prayers fall on the ears of a god too deaf to care anymore;
He gave up 51 days ago.
Relegated his throne and replaced the angels with model trains;
He wishes his worshippers would do the same.
Experience some child-like wonder while there is still time…
Only 51 days to go you know.
 
Fifty Days in the Bed
6-3-16

The gas station burns besides Main Road,
In the Town that Angered Sky.
Fumes of leaking gas led to plumes of serious smoke
After a callous cigarette lit up next to a pump;
That fool won’t be the one survivor Death chooses – he’s not a survivor anymore.
Smoke blackens days that are already dark in topic.
“Come walk with me,” Death invited the owners.
“It’s healthy, will lead to longer life.”
They thought they were the ones to stay alive.

Gas exploded again today and blew the roof into the road…
…a trucker passing through and away rode it flat into the tarred surface.
Now after a small mushroom cloud of their own, there is no more gas, or station,
Just a hollow, black, burning, cruddy, crumbling shell of a building
With a future as bleak as everybody else’s.
“Walking would have led to longer life,” Death chortles.
“But you can’t always predict those nasty gas explosions.”
Death walked away whistling his favourite tune…
…There were 50 days in the bed and the little day said, roll over.
 
Firecracker
7-3-16

Suzie works a dead-end diner job serving breakfast to dying people.
She puts on her blue uniform each morning;
The laundry basket is as good a way sort clothing
When washing things is pointless – only 49 more days anyway.
Her hair is grease personified,
Standing up, sitting down and dancing at all angles during her morning rituals:
Eat – all the sugary cereal you can have free of worry;
Who cares about cavities…it’s only 49 more days.
Drink – she draws the line at spoiled milk;
That goes to the dying dog under the table.

Suzie picked her nose thirty times this last minute;
Boogers joining the cereal ‘down the hatch’.
Her nails harbour enough dirt to start an ant farm,
And her teeth could use a brushing
To remove some of the cigarette stains.
She smokes in public now,
Ash dangling like a rock climber leaning out of their harness.

She fell asleep while smoking today, Suzie did.
They say it took the firemen an hour to put out the blaze,
And everybody watched as house joined her body as ash and smoke.
Death wolf whistled from the crowd as the blaze burned on;
“What a firecracker.”
 
ABZ’s
9-3-16

Mrs Baker taught children their ABZ’s:
Abysmal, Broken, Zombified.
Children don’t go to school anymore
In the Town that Angered Sky.
With only 48 days left,
They play in the park without swings,
And swim in the lake without water;
Chasing ducks without wings and throwing stones without sticks.
Parents don’t care anymore about stranger danger;
Danger is lurking in the very molecules of time these days.

Mrs Baker remembers all her charges,
Even the grown up ones like Suzie, who,
Bless her heart,
Died tragically waiting for the end to come.
She’s old now, Mrs Baker, pushing daisies,
And it would be a shame if she was the one left at the end;
She’s danced with Death and beaten cancer twice already.
People ask Death;
“You’ve tried so hard to have her in your arms,
Why not take her now with 48 days left?”

Death defies them and walks arm-in-arm with Mrs Baker
Down the street to the diner,
Where he leaves her to go inside for his meal.
“Two eggs, thoroughly beaten black and blue please Becky.”
 
Hop Skip Jump
9-3-16

The school bell sounds shrilly in a building abandoned
But for bats and bones.
Classes lie like empty hopscotch courts –
4th grade, 5th grade, 7th grade, 10th.
Double back, go again;
One leg, two legs, hop skip jump –
And snippets of songs line the hallways;
“Jesus loved the little children,
Because my old man’s a dustman.”

Slogans and propaganda cluster on the blackboards
In strong, stark white chalk lines and whorls;
“Call Harry 4 sexy times;
0800-NEVER.”
“Fanny Costas iz a dyke.”
“The Tommy Tankers wuz hear.”

Mrs Baker was the last to give up hope;
Sat in sixth grade for months
Until she took to walking with Death down to the diner.
Now the broken windows call to batty birds
And cracked tiles see only the shuffling, scuffling feet of rats and ‘coons;
“Come make homes here while you can,
Only 47 days left.”
 
Rotten Tomatoes
28-3-16

The grocery store sells flashlights and week-old lettuce.
Flowers dead-head in the isles
And weevils have infested the grains,
But nobody cares save for old Al the manager.
He gathers together rotten tomatoes to throw at Death as he walks past,
For Death was all up in his business and then took his business elsewhere.

In the Town that Angered Sky
People go out more than stay in these days – pity really,
As the restaurants closed down
And all that’s left is the ratty diner – business is booming!

Al doesn’t bother to put his teeth in anymore
And one can see his sunken gums.
Only 46 days now,
And the supply of denture cement went hard a week ago anyway.
He spits in your general direction,
His white shirt stained yellow at the pits and drenched with saliva from his dripping mouth,
But he still trash-talks at Death as he walks past with Mrs Baker;
Al used to be in love with Mrs Baker.

His 70-year-old brain and body have seen war, war again, and now the apocalypse is coming,
But he won’t go out without a fight.
Just yesterday he took his twelve-gauge to work
And fired a warning round into Death’s head;
Turns out Death cannot die,
But Mrs Baker can.
 
Death’s Servant-Friend
28-3-16

Fanny’s Diner used to only serve breakfast until 11.
These day’s it’s what you want when you want it
If it’s available and there’s someone to make it for you;
Service with a ‘don’t care’ flair.
The restaurants are closing and their patrons swarm the diner
Like flies on shit….
…so they serve what they feel like serving
When they feel like serving it.

You’re more likely to find several hairs in your pancakes.
45 days left only you know,
So why bother with kitchen hygiene
When we all gonna die! Fry like Suzie or explode like Mrs B!
Ya’ll see that right…bullets flew through Death and straight in,
And out, of Mrs Baker’s head. That’s trippin!

Al is Death’s best friend now, escorts him to the diner,
Opening doors and windows and pulling out chairs.
Maybe he will be the one left behind to start again…
..maybe they should just send him to jail
For murdering Mrs B.
 
Owned, Mourned, Waiting
28-3-16

Children are always the first to die,
And they die young.

The rate of miscarriages has increased dramatically
In the Town that Angered Sky;
Mary had to leave without her precious little lamb
Because she lost that baby in a bloodbath;
12 weeks along – what a shame.
James died at 10 weeks along and,
Although the end is coming anyway,
His mother wishes it were her death not his – anybody
But her baby boy.

Pain fills the hospital’s empty nursery
But overflowing gynaecological unit – parents losing children
Faster than the apocalypse can approach.
Day 44 now and only elder ‘would-be-siblings’ line the streets
With their boring boards and eclectic scooters.

Death just smiles and walks about the town that,
By now,
He owns completely.
It’s rumoured that if you look closely, there, in his shadow,
Walk the souls of the dear departed from this Town that Angered Sky.
 
Of Reindeer and Bells
30-3-16

Snow falls like ash from Suzie’s cigarettes
In a town that hasn’t seen snow in 50 years;
It’s a sign of the forthcoming apocalypse they say.

Starving children build snowmen and ride cardboard sleighs,
That spill their soggy contents
Jingling like bells on the sidewalk.
Red-nosed patrons pour into the diner for day-old doughnuts,
And Fanny’s bitter brew.

Department stores, long ago looted for the edible lingerie,
Are left bereft of scarves and down jackets.
Dozens of decrepit dogs die while owners crowd the diner
Looking for better days and a bit of company.
The lumber mill works overtime for the first time in years;
Got to provide the old folks home
With enough firewood to keep those old bones moving another 43 days.
 
Memories
30-3-16

The home for the ancient-old folk
Is one of the few places full with only 42 days left.
Death comes in to warm his cold hands,
And sits a while by the fireside
Reading ‘Lassie’ to those who remember what a dog is.

Ancient Alzheimery Mrs Parker sits alone with her memories;
She’s lost in the past which is a blessing in the present.
She sings softly to herself in some fancy European language,
About pony rides and pigtails and people the war wiped out.

Death wipes the snot from her nose and the drool from her chin,
With the care people reserve for the young or senile;
“Only 42 days Sally, then you’ll be with them again.”
 
Accident-Like
30-3-16

The prison filled up 41 days ago,
Before the riots and the doomsday soothsayer’s truths coming true.
Now the warden calls the shots
Over the lives of fifty men in cells meant for half that amount,
While guards strap on sterile gloves and strip-search each other.

Old ‘Billy the Kid’ Paxton pegged it last night.
Death walked calmly through the walls and into cell-block C,
And waltzed out with William Paxton’s soul.
Arguments broke out during recreation time
As to whether a serial killer goes to heaven or hell;
‘Depends on whether he meant to kill them,
Or whether it was accident-like,” said Clyde Bonniface.
“Depends on where I feel like taking them,”
Death responded,
Tinkling a stick across the fence.
 
Death’s Flock
30-3-16

The Town that Angered Sky is slowly rising,
Beating gravity at its own game.

Only 40 days left now,
And the borders are all forty centimetres above that of the adjacent town.
Trees split in half and fall over;
Animals of the wild kind trip over their legs
And fall over the edge in their hurry to escape the apocalypse.

Cars line the I-don’t-care-anymore-50 interstate,
Abandoned for better days and better prospects
By those who saw the future and predicted ‘this might happen’.
Nobody leaves town anymore.
They’re resigned to their fate these days;
Better to die in bed,
Than in a blaze of petrol and twisted metal
On a road heading nowhere.

Death loves the people in the Town that Angered Sky;
Their resilience and tenacity outweighs that of warriors of old
In battles of young.
He calls them ‘his flock’ and herds them with care,
Partaking in their rituals of coffee and eggs
With the vigour of a force half his age.

 
Perfect Princess
30-3-16

Today is the final day for the Town that Angered Sky.
Thirty-nine-days have come and gone
At a speed that rivals that of NASA’s rockets.
Old Al fell and broke his hip while escorting death to the diner;
They say it wasn’t the fall that killed him,
But the surgical team high on anaesthetic.

Sally Parker went to bed with her memories one night
And simply passed into the realm of the non-living.
It’s said that death came to collect her with a smile,
Reuniting the woman with her own thoughts
And the person she was before the Alzheimer’s took her away from herself.

There was a riot in the prison and Clyde Bonniface shivved a guard.
He was gunned down at dawn by the firing squad;
Reminiscent of days of old.
The prison stands empty now,
It spilled prisoners onto the street
Like a burst heart pumping blood.
The first thing those prisoners did was head to the diner for a drink,
Only to find that the coffee was cold.
Becky was the one they killed;
Blame the messenger,
Or in this case,
The waitress.

The Jones’ had a daughter.
“Weighing in at 3 pounds,
A perfect princess was produced yesterday,”
The message would have said – if the paper still ran.
Mrs Jones died due to complications following surgery.
Mr Jones sits with his Sarah on the front porch swing
Singing to the infant about better days;
They were two of the four people left now.
 
Inheritance
30-3-16

Davy Jones drowned in the bath last night
While searching for his wife’s locket.

Sarah wailed for the family she will never know,
But Death tenderly picked up the infant and walked off into the future;
“Out of the mouths of babes…
…the young shall inherit the earth.”