Jonathan Douglas Dowdle’s most recent poem to appear here was “We All Live a Koan” (January 2020).

Absent of Some Mercy
By Jonathan Douglas Dowdle

I crossed through a gaze, to see how alone I was,
On streets that still screamed, and wept
Beneath the glass, broken, on forgotten streets,
Where dreams whispered softly
Against their death.

There were notes scratched in my pockets,
Like hands dipped into silence,
Clutching the strands of all the things unsaid,
Banging out the blue in the back of my head,
Things to remember, and things to forget.

I knew well enough: these avenues of death,
Where you choke on the ash
Still on your breath,
And despite how you once begged, and pled,
There are no prayers
That echo an answer through the hollowness.

I crossed through a gaze, always grasping at love,
To know well enough, how alone I was,
In a city of broken dreams,
That still cry, and scream,
As the lamplight played its symphony
Against the last of the broken things.