a poem by Ron Hayes

Brought to You in Technicolor

Metallic flash of silver
in the piss-yellow haze
of a filthy streetlight
turns suddenly crimson
in the blue-black night.

The attack is swift and hard.
Shocked, the man makes
no noise, falls like a sack
of pilfered loot before
curling fetal and covering up
fruitlessly. The coroner will find
no defensive wounds.

Brilliant red--arterial and alive--
pools slow and silent like plague,
seeps into scorched brown
grass, pulses into crevices cracked
black through the concrete walk,
swallowing street dust along the way
to drop, gluey and thick, through the rust-
brown sewer grate at the corner.

In the gauzy light above,
the recluse in his purple chair
snaps shot after shot, captures
the attack in black and white.

Later, he'll order special paint
from the Internet, dye each frame
by hand, style it just so.
Only when the executor of his will
holds the screening of his work
will they see how vividly
he captured the colors of his day.

© by Ron Hayes
 
Gutter Eloquence Magazine ~ Issue #15 ~ May 2011