OKIE PINOKIE IN SURBURBIA

A Gravel Gertie look-alike
sits on a car seat soaking up the sun,
like a bear just out of hibernation.

A log-splitter sits in the front yard,
used by the residents to prepare firewood,
stacked along the house, their only source of heat.

They’re Vietnam Vets with a junkyard collection;
trailers, vintage vehicles, including a rusty Jeep
Commando, 2 motorcycles and a ’64 Coupe de Ville.

A plume of smoke wafts across the driveway
with a scent reminiscent of the Woodstock
Rock Concert of ’69.

Their neighbor, who thought happiness was possible,
fulminates in a quiet rage every time he looks
out his window at the the eyesore next door.

It mars the elegance of the Italiante Villa
he constructed with unreported income
from his landscaping business.

A Florentine fantasy, it features machicolated
signorial towers, wrought-iron railings, Renaissance
balustrading and stone lions at his front door.

A recirculating punp trickles a waterfall out of a satyr’s
slumbering organ into a pond. It lulls him to sleep every night.

His Priest reminds him that every end is a beginning.