The Patrolman

As I sit drinking coffee

Reading Patti Smith

Sitting in an old iron chair

In front of my home

I suddenly see a spotlight searching street to street

Home to home

Yard after yard

A patrol was combing over my neighborhood 

Untangling its strands of night shadows

With his bluish white beam of light 

Until he was center stage

Well really

It was me that was center stage

Of his onlook

At least for a moment

Satisfied with my

Book choice and coffee cup steaming 

He drove on and kept looking

All over

Shining his light

I guess the thieves are on the prow this morning?

Drug fend ambitions

Trying to provide for the next high

My niece said last night in a post

A murderer was on the loose

Over where she lives in the next town

That the authorities had found a body

Dumped down the road from her home

She said, there were policeman searching

Up and down her road for the killer

She said, she was sitting up this night

With her rifle

No doubt her baby would sleep tight tonight!!!

Now

A few hundred feet away

The silence is broken by a loudspeaker

“Get down on your knees!”

“Make no sudden moves!”

No shots were fired

And

The lights in the night

Finally stopped flashing

Another was locked up

And

The patrolman

Finished his patrol