0424 Walking Together Poem by Michael Shepherd

When you arrive, ring then knock,
we talk a little and I can feel
you think perhaps you ought to say
how’s the poetry going then

but the silent note’s just a little
out of tune so I say
let’s go for a walk
the park’s quite near

so we walk out, the street is quiet
except for the house
where only last Saturday
the two sons were stabbed many times
hauled out of a white Mercedes van
in a gang related crime unquote

the house guarded by expressionless men on cellphones
born into a cycle of poverty, easy money and revenge, then
on to the park, the walkers, the cyclists,
the football players, the tennis players,
the lake, the dogs, the ducks, the rowers,
the flowers, those who sit and watch

this is in place of my poem
this is my poem this walk
a way of saying I hope
you share all the world with me

and all the emotions, all the thoughts
that arise from it, all we see
every moment whoops careful now as the boy
on the unsteady bicycle nearly hits us both

and back past the house of death
where the men stare at us as if
we are some yet unidentified enemy
in a war they won’t admit to

this is in place of my poem
this is my poem this walk
a way of saying I hope