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Monday, June 30, 2008

Blue Balloon


(click for Revver video)

Prose about a helium party balloon that lands in a vacant lot.
Distributed by Tubemogul.


Blue Balloon

by Jolie Blond

10/07/01


Blue Balloon,

hovering two feet
over a brownish, overgrown vacant lot,

like an off-color scarecrow,

like an airhead sentinel

guarding weeds.


From where have you come,
blue balloon?

Did you escape the small, stubby fingers
of a child,

breaking her young heart?


Did you tear loose from a grand opening,

floating away from your brothers and sisters
unnoticed?


Were you carelessly anchored or did you struggle?

Or maybe you're a terrorist weapon,

anthrax spores mixed with your helium.


I saw you last night, blue balloon

bobbing and poking your plastic head
a foot above the weeds.

Did you have a message for me?

For someone like me?


This morning I came out to visit you

and you were dead . . .or sleeping . . .

lying in the dirt amid the weeds

shrunken half last night's size,

immobile.


I never knew you, blue balloon.

I know you flew.

I know you soared to great heights

before you landed in the abandoned lot

where all manner of abandoned others landed;

broken stuff, unwanted stuff,
unusable stuff:

worn tires and broken pots
and candy bar wrappers . . .

but you flew there, blue balloon.

I'll give you that.


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