Poetry: The Killing Frost By Jonathan Hayes

The Killing Frost

 

 

The heterodox slattern had many alarming cicatrices. 

 

“Do tell, why the umbel fell,” she said to herself in the liquor store.

 

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In the farmhouse, tufts of kapok exuded from the bunny’s tummy.

 

“Mommy, can I go out and kill tonight?”

 

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A petulant chap with a clock for a head stands by the murky pond.

 

At noon each day he juggles razor blades and sings, “Poor Butterfly.”

 

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The trapeze artist oscillates through the birch boughs that crack winter.

 

Landing in a motley windrow, laughing and announcing, “The circus is in town!”

 

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An ice cream truck trundles down the tree-lined street on a pastel afternoon.

 

Crows, twigs, and leaves land on the truck’s carapace while children run and scream, “Stop!”

 

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Wind blows past thought, clouds refuse to cling, a hornet lands on a melancholy puddle.

 

A gnarly villager spent his hundredth birthday in the garden with one thing to say, “The worms.”

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A posse of stray dogs stampedes into the desolate alley behind the Hofbräu.

 

The backdoor opens, a chef with sunken eyes tosses sauerkraut snickering, “Eat or be eaten.” 

 

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In the derelict factory, empty beer bottles and shards of glass illuminated by moonlight. 

 

Pissy feral cats scuttle out of an oil drum fleeing the watchman’s flashlight and call, “Bitches!” 

 

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An emotion-filled watermelon in the middle of an Amish cornfield with drunken ants loitering.

 

The bohemian scarecrow high as a barn on bedstraw unable to utter could only, “Achoo!”

 

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The impermanence of escape at a drive-in movie theater, a junkie nods out in a VW Bug. 

 

A rat crawls up his pant leg, as the silver screen announces, “Show time!”

 

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An animated fruit tramp went to the edge of a melodious river to sleep and awoke a season late.

 

His shoes gone from his feet, a racoon spoke out from a bewildering bush, “I didn’t see them.”

 

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Back at the cattle ranch in the meadow, bottle flies bejewel a festering psychedelic cow patty.

 

A group of trespassing mycophiles feel the vibration and are drawn to the flies and, “Buzz.”

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All alone, a mortician in a derby hat sips a sazerac and eats chop suey in his shotgun house.

 

Freight trains are sad and funerals are beautiful he ponders, while the phonograph plays, “Misty.”

 

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The flamboyant bank robber sashayed down Broadway wearing a knee-length Siberian fur coat.

 

Carrying the get-away cash in a portmanteau, catching the crosstown bus, “Who needs a car!?”

 

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A turgid rummy sat on the stoop of a brownstone tenement with hands sculpted ‘round his skull.

 

The voice of his priggish granny echoes, “You’ll end up on the Bowery selling apples.”

 

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A ghoulish carny shined the 1949 Ford Four-Door Sedan — front bumper a fresh tombstone.

 

Next to the cotton candy stand, tucked away in a tent, “Look, see the car that hauled the dead!”

 

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The salty dog’s cargo ship docked in the city bay for the long-summer weekend.

 

He caught a baseball game and had one too many hot dogs, “The sirens are calling.”

 

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An exhausted military school cadet played with himself as the bugle ended with taps.

 

In the metal-framed bunk bed below, his roommate whispered,    “                            ”

 

 

 

 

 

Jonathan Hayes lives in Oakland, California with his wife and their cat.

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