the outlaw poetry network

Monday, September 14th, 2009...11:48 am

ken greenley | city playground

CITY PLAYGROUND

Life can be tough
on a small boy on a city playground
Nothing but steel and concrete
stretching for miles in every direction
Young eyes greedily grab
for space green freedom
I remember
How it was all left up to my soul’s eye
How it transformed high brick walls
Into ponderous canyons
where Indians and outlaws
roamed wild
Holes in chain link fence
became portholes to other times
The playground blacktop
an night-time ocean
The basketball backboards hulking icebergs
And straight up
that small square of sky
enclosed by buildings
Seemed bluer
Reached higher
The clouds more free and drifting
Each one scarce
Precious

Ken Greenley

is a writer who lives in Denver, Colorado. The number of places he’s lived is only exceeded by the number of job’s he’s had. Greenley likes to explore the themes of class division (in a supposedly classless country), the struggle to stay spiritual in the modern world, and the growth episodes that occur in childhood. He thinks art, particularly writing, should combat media brainwashing, and should examine the clash between what we’re told and what really happens. He tries to make his material as fuuny as possible, because he finds it hard to make modern life seriously, and considers it his mission “to make people laugh and think at the same time.”