Friday, August 04, 2006

triptych, center panel: calling the burning house home

the soldiers kill
the children first of course
then rape the women
and i want to be shocked
but am not

what i've learned from history
is that
no one learns from history

what i don't mention very often
is that i don't care

the cold rain falls and
my son sleeps through his sickness
and the streets offer reflections
but no shadows

i have spent so much time
inventing the bleeding horse that
i never stopped to think about
how he would live

i never realized that all of these
thin sheets of paper
would fill up actual space

and getting lost is a simple trick but
staying that way is
something else altogether

junkies die or they
pull themselves out of the tar

houses burn or they don't
and the bodies found in the ashes
are given names

they are called husband
or father or lover and
the poems written about them
all sound like empty threats

the hills spin slowly around
these barren fields
and bankrupt factories

we are finally home but
no one here is happy to see us

No comments: