Sorrow overcame the twilight
and the thump of the heart-
I ran out into the stomach
of the darkened forest
and saw the choking
of the innocent child,
flashback to Salem’s women burning,
sounds of screaming and the silence of the crowd.
Dead hands shaking mine
at coffee shops,
sitting in the restaurants,
mouthing words to songs
only I could hear,
beautiful and painful melodies
synchronizing my ticking time,
seconds I felt fall away
till the earth’s imploding.
Through the trees,
I watch four men fishing,
coming off their nine to five highs,
they laugh with their heads
pointed upward to a soon to be starry sky.
I wonder what secrets wander
through their minds
when the alarm clock
goes off at 6:30 every morning.
And when I walked
through the grocery store,
looking for green peppers
and soy chocolate milk,
I had the impulse
to turn to the girl
behind the cheese counter
and ask her-
How do you cope with this
grisly wounded world?
In earnest, I don’t think
I deal well-
I’m not fighting hard enough,
working long enough,
crying deep enough.
More often than not
I felt drained
by the past
and looked, with dead eyes,
to the future.
The leaves on every tree
in my mother’s garden
told me that life was
holy and sacred and tempting-
but the words of the hollow,
in their temples and churches
and synagogues
wrote down on my paper
thoughts of drowning,
and factory smoke,
faster guns
to kill more people
whom we shall never know
their shirt sizes,
their children’s first names,
whether they liked tea
or coffee in the morning.
I am tired
of demanding sweet serenades,
but settling, time after time:
filthy stanzas,
cold vibratos,
harsh screechings.
Too many human beings,
standing naked,
in front of their mirrors-
screaming loud
wanting to find the sterile pitch
that would break
their looking glass filters-
no fantasy adventurelands-
just shards of glass and shaving cream.
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