Patchouli Day

Wow, a happy poem?  From me? 

 

 

Patchouli Day

And he’s out of town

So you’re alone in the car

And you can play what you want

And you can be who you are

And the Santa Ana wind

With its SoCal heat

Whips the dry sand dust

Across the hot black street

And the convoys pass by

All the humvees in their line

But you remember who you are

And you know you’re doing fine

Steel guitar on the radio

And paisley on your shirt

Body oil smelling like rain

And home and dirt

And you can sing with the music

‘Cause no one can hear what you say

And you can go where you’re going

And yeah, it’s a patchouli day

Talking Boxes

Warnings: violence, death, home invasion

 

Televisions don’t talk

Not when there’s no power

They can’t predict the future

They can’t warn of your last hour

They can’t yell the way you’ll die

Through their static you can’t hear it

They can’t murmur of your murder

And the fact you’re very near it

They don’t say he’ll wear a trench coat

They don’t know he has a bat

They don’t know he has a lock pick

In the brim of his old hat

They can’t know he walks so lightly

That the stairs they never creak

They can’t see his rat eyes peering

Till he finds the room he seeks

They can’t see the brutal slaughter

Or hear the silence after screams

They can’t feel the hot blood dripping

Or know half finished dreams

TVs don’t know laughter

And it’s just an actor you hear cry

TVs don’t know nothing

so how’d it tell me how I die?

Notes: I wrote this ages ago and just recently found it.  It's based on a creepy broken old TV my family had when I was a kid.  It definitely creeped me out a bit rereading it, especially since we recently had a break-in.  (Everyone was fine, but some of our stuff was not.)