The Poet Nextdoor
Art is in the eye of the beholder
For those of you who unfamiliar with the app Nextdoor, it is, in its own words, “for neighborhoods where you can get local tips, buy and sell items, and more.” I signed up when we moved to our new house a couple of years ago.
People also use Nextdoor to rant, and I enjoy local schadenfreude as much as the next person. In fact, it’s pretty much the only reason I consider Nextdoor even remotely interesting. Then, yesterday, I found something wholly, radically unexpected, in the form of a free-verse poem.
To the low life who took my grandsons
Vintage rocker
You had the nerve to
Come onto our front Porch on Thompson Ave in East haven
And STEAL what ever you wanted!!!!
Perhaps you are the same person that tried to break into the
House I heard you jiggling the front door at 6 o’clock in the morning my husband was in
the hospital and I was home alone next time I’ll be waiting for you
Like finding a sweet, juicy blackberry in a wooded thicket, I am savoring not only the thing itself, but the serendipity of it, intensified by how easily it would have escaped my detection and subsequent enjoyment if I hadn’t been, for whatever reason, paying attention.
So many things to love! “Vintage rocker” conjures not a chair, but Mick Jagger. There’s the strangely masterful employment or non-employment of capitalization, the onomatopoeic “jiggling” relative to the front door, the whimsical (or are they significant?) line breaks, the ending teetering on an unpunctuated death threat. The writer is anonymous, which is kind of the most perfect thing of all: the entire universe banshee-funneling rage from Thompson Ave. in East Haven.
Dear Unknown Scribe, I know you were earnest and disgruntled when you wrote this. For that, I’m sorry, but I want to thank you for reminding me that art is not limited by intention or context, and that its richness lies in appreciation. In other words, thank you for the juicy blackberry.