Concrete Pigeons

January 19, 2024

I live atop a giant concrete cube.

That I share with a dozen other families.

Few I know beyond a polite nod of the head or wave of the hand.

I smell my neighbors’ TV dinners.

Secondhand smoke their cigarettes.

Burn in the shower when they flush their shit.

Hear them talking, arguing, having sex.

Forced into an endless orgy with a bunch of strangers.

At night I sit on the rooftop to escape it all.

I throw breadcrumbs not at but to pigeons.

These birds never really belonged to me.

Or anyone.

I throw breadcrumbs not at but to a cloud of grey wings.

Like little concrete statues, wobbling and flying around.

It’s as if they came from the concrete walls,

Or they came from potholes in roads,

and missing bricks on walls,

or burst out of crumbling statues as they fall.

Birds that don’t belong to me, or anyone, or anything, or anywhere.

A defiance to any attempt to tame the world.

I am just scattering crumbs.

Feeding the city itself.

Watching it get swallowed up, and carried off by a sea of grey.

Carried across this city to every nook, by a cloud of concrete pigeons

Posted by:

Rowan

I am a man of words, and preferably those words left unspoken

Hole In The Hedgerow