NVN Sunday: DREAMING SUMMER DOWN
by David Chorlton
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Yesterday’s news sent the city to bed with domestic terror for a nightcap, home grown it said, easy to fund, you can’t keep bad men down. And fall begins today even if summer still has a scorpion’s tail. A night of interrupted sleep with a dream of far away; how well those friends of years ago appeared. Good health among the living and even better with the dead. Who would have expected such a fine reunion, or found the references to erotica made in Vienna? Outside, it’s Arizona warm with coyotes wandering the starlit streets and bus shelters doubling as bedrooms for the poor. The midnight traffic on the interstate is singing in a sparkling monotone and the moon hangs like half a cup of fire between two leaning palms. Let the past be the past, say Goodnight and ride a beam of dreamlight home. Fumble for the key. Ignore the splinters in the door where someone must have brought a crowbar. Imagine! The cracking wood, the aching hinge, the next door neighbor’s reassuring words: don’t worry, it could never happen here.
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David Chorlton has considered Phoenix home for several decades. He used to live in Vienna but rarely dreams about it. Much of his poetry comes from life in Arizona, where he has found strains of unrest and social disquiet that he can't ignore.