Of Ashes and Dreams
Miles Budimir
The hospital where I was born
is now a field of dirt,
where weeds are being born anew,
and the elegant Victorian funeral home
just across the street
where I last saw my grandfather
in 1979,
a crumbling cement lot
fenced in by rusting loops of chain,
even the White Castle
is closed, “For Lease”
posted in a window,
a sure sign that something’s
gone terribly wrong—
at the scrapyard,
men with meaty, tattooed arms
toss refrigerators and aluminum siding,
radiators and copper plumbing,
into ever-growing piles
of rustbelt dreams,
earning their small rewards,
coin for their daily bread,
turning muddy water into wine—
all the while, that
miserly worm gnaws
at our core,
pushes us out to edges
of fickle foundations,
aware that dust, like the Biblical preacher
told us,
returns to dust,
but spirit, maybe spirit,
the hope that hovers over
our emerald abyss,
our grey thawing hearts,
that fiery old bird,
keeps on keepin’ on,
ridin’ the bonfire thermals
of dreams.
Author Bio
Milenko (Miles) Budimir is the author of two chapbooks: Departures (Burning River) and Rustbelt Romance (deep cleveland). His poems have appeared in a variety of publications, including most recently Show us Your Papers: An Anthology (Main Street Rag), Gasconade Review, Poetrybay, Pittsburgh Poetry Review, Great Lakes Review, and The Toledo Free Press, among others. His freelance writing has appeared in Balkanist and BELT. He works as a philosophy lecturer and technical writer and editor in the Cleveland area.
