Mediocre Poetry: The Apartment Complex

Good Times! Image via Wikipedia

OK…So this was meant for http://jinglepoetry.blogspot.com, but too late. So y’all can laud or pan it or whatever, dear readers.  Buildings was this weeks theme.

 

Once upon a time, before ever I was born,

you were erected a little after 1971.

Brick and morter, cement and wood,

until one day there you stood,

13 buildings are lucky if an architect is in a good mood.

 

200 apartments that were state of the art back in the days when Nixon was not a crook,

splash in a pool built in the days before diving boards were took.

Snack bar, volley ball, n’ tennis,

Sit on your terrace without  fearing a menace.

 

But that was in 1972,

now the owners don’t know what to do.

Buildings age, wood rots,

but the staff cares not a lot.

One lives here because the rent is cheap,

lucky you if you don’t meet up with one of your creeps.

 

A Mexican man who spills his beer can down from his balcony,

A drag queen who owes me money,

Wife beaters and folks who can’t read,

a friendly ‘ex-rapist,’

drug dealers who meet the people’s need.

Some people have killed themselves here instead,

Guess it’s cheaper than moving,

but you don’t fill me with that kind of dread.

Apartment  complex of mine, I love you and hate you at the same time.

 

When I first saw you I knew you were just right  for me.

Unlike the house we had owned, no rats in the attic roamed.

The terrace was enough outdoor space without a lawn to mow.

Finally a pool within 50 feet of me not made of plastic, you know?

and a  few nice neighbors to balance  the plethora of trash,

no one’s  too nosy, they let us do what we wish without being rash,

my hoarding* or Mom’s gardening,

letting our cats roam ,

this is the perfect place for eccentrics  to  have friends but be left sometimes alone.

Apartment Complex, intellectual purgatory, I call you home.

—————-
Now playing: Too Short – Ghetto ’cause you know, this be the ‘hood.
via FoxyTunes

 

Catz in da Hood

* No I’m not as bad as Hoarders, or that short story I wrote, or those two guys in Harlem in the 1940s.