Angele Toomey Poetry

In the heart of the city, there’s always a wall that bears witness — a battered sign insisting Post No Bills while generations ignore it, layer by layer. This poem is my small tribute to those weathered surfaces that hold the echoes of protests, concerts, beliefs, and defiance. Here’s to the quiet endurance of things that stand, even as they’re covered over, and stripped back by the elements.

Post No Bills
The sign is almost smothered —
decades of paste, rusting staples,
the protest posters
that curl and fade like onion skin.

The latest university
band with the witty name,
anti-Trump and Free Palestine,
Pride rainbows, whales, John 3:16 —
will all weather away paint
on an old weatherboard house.

Last time I walked these streets
it was George W’s weapons
of mass delusion, Black Deaths in Custody.

The one constant is
the endurance of that stoic sign,
its futile truth weathered
but still legible:
Post No Bills.
And yet we always do.

Photo by Ann H on Pexels.com digital changes made by Angele Toomey