Gawkers

[just mercedes]

it was like a surreal experience for me


Gapers

Ravenous, they come
gnawing with desire,
from the road-kill photographer
to carrion scavenger.
They draw close to observe
a still life of running shoe,
the battered knockoff purse
and a sandwich half-chewed,
a flayed best seller,
some scattered paper,

college-ruled.

The gestalt exhibition
is a massive décollage
air-brushed in hemoglobin,
arrayed upon asphalt
as another roadside attraction.

Center stage is a leaden grotesquerie
fashioned in heavy metal,
shattered glass and burnt rubber;
a botched Titan's accordion
cordoned off in yellow

as if tragedy were a crime.

The strewn victims
seem almost incidental
to this prying pack
as they sink low on all fours

to drain the outlook lifeless.

I like this - the allusion to the single shoe reminds me of how photographers would take a single shoe with them to a crash site, this being generally recognized as a potent image of death. I like the single line stanzas - they work to add pathos. I'm not too keen on all the adjectives, but I seem to be allergic to them lately so that's me, not you. A decollage is formed by removing layers, so maybe the term should be collage?