THROWAWAY
POEM
He balled up
the paper and casually chucked it into a group of mauve shoppers
They looked
at him with mauve expressions
Then
curiosity got the better of the mauvest matron amongst them
Who swiftly
plucked it from the fag-butt littered pavement
Nimbly
unfurled the paper petals
And once it
bloomed she eagerly scanned the words within
Her mauve
associates squinting and peering and jostling to get a glimpse too
He allowed
himself a flicker of a wry smile as he receded from the scene
His work was
done
He turned
into an alley splattered with pigeon shit and council corruption
Pulled a
small spray can from his ragged dirty jacket
And sprayed a
couple of words on the betting shop wall
Then another
couple a few paces further down in an improvised alcove where Sally had slept
in a cardboard box the previous night
He repeated
this process in several nearby locations
The words
were linked but it wasn’t immediately clear how
His
concentrated frown relaxed as his next task was complete
He left the
alley, coughing and spluttering as he waded through air pollution as thick as
the councillors who planned
The shiny
soulless bus station where he took a bus to the park
Once there by
the murky duck pond
The water a
mossy green
Algae proliferating
A testament
to a disposable society
Nonchalantly
disrupting the precious and delicate ecosystem
He beckoned
the birds with nutritious seeds
And launched
into a passionate reading of those same words
Children with
ice-cream eyes and chicken nugget bellies gathered to watch this eccentricity
The innocence
of their tender years not yet processing this spectacle into an object for
mockery and cynicism
And
maximising immersive uncritical absorption
He ended on a
crescendo
The ducks
steadfastly ignoring his verbal toil
But the
children enraptured
Job done once
again
He knew deep
in his very core
That a few
choice words
If delivered
with precision and grace
Could change
the world
These were
his random acts of kindness
A throwaway
poem
Seeds of love
sown
Without doubt
to touch a few
And with
stubborn resilient hope
To burn in
the hearts of many
*************************©Mark Carver
2019
Mark Carver is a well-known and much-loved figure in the Northampton cultural scene.
Yup. a good one Mark. Like to see more.
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