The Ballad of Boulder

0

Boulder when will you keep your children healthy
Build up your wealthy
They can’t see high enough

Boulder why can’t I stay here
Get me out of here
Boulder I don’t care how white you are
Where is your diversity

The people sure talk a lot here
In drums circles & running
They hit bricks         They got houseless
They throw                      Bones
They don’t go there
They welcome you home

Do easy baby             Go hard make money
Buy art for the mountain       Eat green richly
Abuse the insides that take care of worrying
I’ll never show
How I feel about you
I’ll never know

Boulder called a bubble   unsaid who penetrates who
Barefeet bleeding apple foraging season
Nutrient to believe in
Thing that keeps a heart beating
When it could go in any direction
It comes back here because it wants to
You have to leave right now
— Matt Clifford

Matt Clifford is the disclaimed author of the forthcoming Ballad of Todd Last Year (Cherry Publications) and The RantoDance of Anonymous From Necropolis & His Machine, the hoppy bass player of Black Market Translation and can do your tax return. He lives and tries in Boulder.

Send poetry submissions of 250 words or fewer to poetry@boulderweekly.com. Poets will be invited to read their published work at 8 p.m. on Thursday, March 26 at an event hosted by Starwater, 4949 Broadway, Suite 117, Boulder.

Boulder Weekly is also currently running a 101-word fiction contest. Entries will be accepted until March 15 at editorial@boulderweekly.com.