Wednesday, April 28, 2010

Places Beneath the Cloth

(A Circular Breathing Poem)

Here is wisdom
to which we must
give only the
substance of the
day, the dust
shaken from the
shoulders of our
traveling jackets
and poured out
from our worn
shoes, blown out
at the seams

And the seams in
our skin, like
shoe leather as
we are worn away
by the wind, so
fatigued that we
can be poured out
into these supportive
chairs that have
become like unresolved
dreams, and our
jackets hang slack
at the door, always
ready for future travels,
ready for our shoulders
to occupy their familiar
places beneath the cloth,
all the dusty substance
of us only giving respite
when it must, its words
small wisdoms soon forgotten

And what are these forgotten
voices, these wisdoms without
sacrifice when clearly there
must be, for what respite
can exist in all these
dusty miles, the substances
cooking out of us beneath
the cloth of our own demise,
these grave-windings within
places half familiar, these
coffins too slim for our
shoulders and wheeled for
the long travels to which
we are bound, always
standing at the threshold
and looking outward, our
jaws slack with dreams
unresolved, ambitions
poured out upon the
earth and spent, our
last mighty efforts
gone now into the twilight
of fatigue, the wind of
our loud railing against
the meal of dirty leather
between our teeth,
a pig's raw skin, the seams
of a child's discarded
toy the grist for this
mill, now fallen into ruin.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I read the last poem that you wrote before I read this one. This one seems less hopeful to me. I'm glad that I read the other one first. In spite of the depressed tone, however, you continue to wow me with your words. m

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