Another Season in Paradise

Greetings from the Hill
82/90 NNW5/10 0717/1918

Another beautiful day and one for a walkabout,
enjoying life for another season before another
appointment with the judge.
The house still on propation by the powers that be
those voices who never take the time to see.

Yesterday a chat with the house appraiser next door
the old man needing refinancing to move back in.
A contractor sucking him blind.
"A million I guess, but everything is down twenty
five percent....and foreclosures," the lady frowned,
her husband was in realestate, she was busy.

A walk to the City Hall and stopping at a white wall,
the future block of four million dollar homes,
thirty two in a 500 foot square, how much a foot.
The old Andersen house, home in '75, gentrified,
shrimp docks long gone, Jabours' Trailer Park,
the VFW club and soon the Schooner Wharf Bar,
Buco quitting his work of greatness.

"Look at that shit," the old Ace Hardware a Mall,
half filled or half empty, coming or going,
a lot of signs and empty space, but of course
it is the offseason before the Fruit Festival
and everything is rented and all are saved,
perhaps even the Two Daves.

Two hours of amusement and backstepping
by the judge reducing a 40,000 dollar fine
to a few hundred including a lecture to the
opportunist attorney Miss Stone.
Thousand dollar sewage bills by houses in
foreclosure, renters deluded by spinbrokers,
a red tag at their front door.

An empty courtroom but for the engineer
and the oldman, patient and accepting.
A year ago the judge declared the oldhouse
"Unsafe to live in."
The oldman a homeless soul until porch
and balcony finished and approved.
Six months living in another world alone.

"Never froze to death nor starved," musing
on the way home for a pipe and pint.

A book on the balcony, cat food on the porch,
floors swept, dishes done, plants watered,
the engineer on the Internet.

A bit of a breeze in the Keys.