The Albatross of Albany Park
hovers
above him, as he stumbles
in his tatters, and mumbles
while he travels,
hiding like a terrapin
haunted by his battles.
He struggles to get a grip
as he slips
from one corner to the next,
begging with hands outstretched
in a silent solitary utterance,
a plea to be seen,
but people flee and cower
at the sight of him,
holding tight,
the coins in their pockets
like he holds tightly to his past.
Evening settles as the sound
of the sunset trembles.
He walks aimlessly around
in rags haunted
by an invisible world
that follows,
hovering above him,
pressing upon him
like the finger of Beelzebub.
The Albatross of Albany Park
shadows him
as he strolls down Montrose
exiled from society,
blinded by the sulfurous burn
of memory.
Born in Bosnia,
as a teenager he witnessed
his father take up arms
resisting the Serb forces in Sarajevo.
Soldiers came like skeletons in boots,
echoes of a “Greater Serbia”
rained from the lips of Milosevic.
Soldiers came swamping Sarajevo
with unpinned grenades stuck
inside their throats,
choking conscience
like lungs full of dust debris
from bombed concrete buildings.
He couldn’t take it
and fell frazzled by the weight,
the weight of his father’s broken bones.
So he escaped
and fled as marching men came
like wild dogs
in ravenous pursuit of flesh.
Exiled from his homeland
he wandered
venturing out into the unknown.
Soon after, he immigrated to the USA,
settling in Chicago’s Albany Park.
He found odd jobs in warehouses,
janitorial work on weekends,
but he couldn’t hold a job for long,
there was something growing
inside of him,
a thorn that kept pricking,
hounding
with resounding sound of rifle fire.
Flashbacks of him holding his father…
him… leaving his father.
The sulfurous burn
of memory upon him.
A seed planted in blood,
becoming a grave in his lungs
blooming into thorns
wounding everything he touched.
The Albatross of Albany Park
hovers
above him, as he stumbles
in his tatters, and mumbles
while he travels,
hiding like a terrapin
haunted by his battles.