Thursday, June 28, 2007

When

BORDERING ON THE TRAGIC

We kept hearing good things about Muncie.
There were meat eating flowers
in the very same world. Ravenous weeds.
A long time I watched her kiss
the waitress she held like a secret.
I watched her drop like a tooth into ink.
She never told me.
When I left, children sang.
When they sang, the world was less a riddle.
All the dreams were deciduous.
Litter in the night. Scant cities
dumping light into the sky.
Who could say to them the sky had enough?
The birds rattled bones
time had hollowed for flight.
The children had tried to sing like them,
their belongings in bandanas
knotted to switches swung
across their baby-fat shoulders.
I was never proud to pitch ruddy bricks
through bakery windows
when it was dark, to sift glass for crumbs.
That was hunger, I think,
though I never feared
the end of my body
beneath the trees where I hid from time.
Ambulances sang
about blood, blood forever.
Through green wood I heard every hymn.
And then they’d pass into the silence of others.
Whose hearts splintered.
And I hadn’t caused it,
not in my distance
or in all the nearness I had left,
but to the air I confessed all the same.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

So boss. The new "Happiness" is beyond a beautiful behemoth. Will drop you a line soon.

Paul said...

For those of you keeping score at home, this replaces "Distraction"... lol

Thanks, Keith.

Anonymous said...

that is beautiful, and full of wonderful moments and feelings...you truly are an amazing poet...thanks mr. guess. have a nice saturday.. keep replacing distraction.-tree

Paul said...

Thanks, though I was referring to a poem called "Distraction," but I like your read too...:)