The Ghost Town

Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem

When we came back to Titusville, it seemed

Quite small, a tatty miniature like scenes

In matchstick hobby art and only dreamed,

Unfinished, by the hobbyist.  The greens

Of citrus groves that once filled up its north,

And never mind the white and yellow blooms

And fragrances, were gone, them all sent forth

To death, uprooted.  All the boyhood rooms

Where brothers and four cousins built up walls

For playtime fights including playtime whangs

From rubber bands.  And then the clownish falls

When we were hit, pretending cowboy bangs.

  What’s gone is gone and what remains are streets

    Now foreign, more like kiddie ghosts in sheets.

~ Phillip Whidden