Nighttime Evils: Mistaken Urban Learnings

Nighttime Evils: Mistaken Urban Learnings
by KJ Hannah Greenberg
Drunken boys, who make sharp turns in alternating directions,
Sipping from paper bags, then laughing until pulling the moon
Streetward, can’t be counted upon to abide constables’ warnings.
Down Syndrome’s babies or kids without arms or legs frighten less.
Similarly, fashion queens, all spangle plus a hand here, there, in neighbors’ pockets
Rot out most social infrastructure gifted them by infusions of love and money.
Such reduced centripetal accelerations, all G’s acting on passengers, not drivers,
Yield crusty offerings at nearby lazarets, produce emergency room occupants.
Those mothers attempt regular negotiations with death, needles not withstanding.
There’s always comeuppance when atypical, gem-studded thuribles bark orders;
Human marionettes must be stone or otherwise hormonally compromised to listen.
Crows, magpies, culture vultures settle on the softest walls at the swimming pool.
Regarding such armillary spheres, after several hours of enthusiastic pounding,
Those prototypes remain disinterested in liberal education, preferring to reckon
From lacquer keyboards, distilled ash, grass, forbs, turkey feathers, related entertainments,
Dancing nakedly at major intersections’ awaiting better pastimes’ introduction and payment in full.
Among the portion of the population that partakes in this suspending of loved ones from chains,
There’s consensus that shower doors lack utility, also that embroiled arguments move no geometries;
Too many difficult letters have already been written for innocents to try to draw attention
Away, via singing, when confronted with gated communities, committees of elders, kings.
Albeit, in the case of thespians, sweeping up after beasties still ranks
Akin to word-sewn cloches, as famous for covering related careers or for vexing cousins.
Adult erudition, at decibels equal to expressed mayhem,
Involves more than cats-of-nine-tails, basement mildew, large expense accounts.
Acknowledged flatulence is not yet commonplace, whereas other “one offs”
Rip tidally through boroughs, districts, alleys, making ransacking of virtue
Unexceptional, merely routine, in thieves’ dens, and in the locker rooms of their sponsors.
Pending the werewolves stop baying, there’s something meaningful in the violence here.