Troubadour Poems: Rob A Mackenzie

Rob A Mackenzie is well known in the literary blogosphere as the man behind the popular poetry blog Surroundings. His pamphlet, The Clown of Natural Sorrow, was published by HappenStance in 2005.

Light Storms from a Dark Country

You bend sleetward down grey alleyways,
xxin search of finesse to straighten out
the tangle of the last spat. The sky’s
xxwatery glaze reminds you of that night
you split. A shock of white chrysanthemums
xxdroops from an abandoned briefcase
on the kerb. They shatter in the slipstream
xxof a truck. You count the Christmas trees
that line the tinselled storefront. They flicker
xxpink, blue and saffron like a funeral
in Hollywood. You search for living flowers,
xxas a peace offering, but when you steal
the twisted stems dumped at the cenotaph
xxdays before, you know it must be over.
Freak lightning tears its jack-knife
xxthrough the sky. You swerve under cover
with other hunched men, all asking what
xxflares in love, why it turns to smoke,
why by any other slant of light
xxyou never move forward, never back.