Tag Archives: America

EARLY

EARLY

going to bed early
want to, and so let me,
sleep through thr most
gorgeous
and most
harrowing dreams

and those dreams
that provide a mixture,
a melange
of the gorgeous
and what is harrowing

a new, alien world,
full of new vistas, images,
stories, beauties,
fears and horrors

where the monstrous
otherness we fear
is what
we brought ourselves

so leave me in this ghost
world of such promise and
achievement
and, yes, abject failure

wake me
if ever
    it should set itself
the task of a journey
of transformation

both outside and
in, searching in the hope
that it did
not die

can still
be found
lomg thought lost,
murdered, imprisoned,
coopted

its
true, better self

going to bed early
so
   much to sleep through

SIDE

SIDE

smokestack lightnin’

wild side
other side
                  flip
side

bit
on the side

I hears you
   can’t do nothing
when twelve bar slide
or blow
   that blues harp

so much death in that ocean
under that mud-brown river

hell yes

I’ve studied that time
saw how
it lost
     its colour

all that
glorious grey

      war never over
till its over

divide outside always
                   first inside

AT APPOMATTOX COURTHOUSE

AT APPOMATTOX COURTHOUSE

proceedings were held up
because the burgers and cokes
had not arrived

then they
        stopped shirts, swopped swords

slavery remained the elephant in the room

it was either kiss and makeup
or unconditional surrender

Arnold Schwartzenegger was playing General Grant
the Rock (naturally)
was playing the ghost of Stonewall Jackson
Charlie Sheen
was totally miscast as Robert E Lee

he rolled ten singles in succession
and so Vicksburg fell
and Pickett’s charge was defeated

unfortunately this doesn’t mean shit
because the Japs and the Krauts
invaded on alternate history Netflix

they promised to
have a comnerative reunion meeting
when the time felt right

slavery remained the elephant in the room

(a room
      nobody bothered to, didn’t
even think to clean)

ONE

ONE

was introduced to death
by a Ms E Dickinson

late of Amherst, New England,
a word mistress of sorts

somewhat
   impure in speech

not privy to her
standing however
     I do remain clueless
in terms of her value
as per
   stocks
        and bonds

and with Lord, who does
all such measure
        down to the last
grain
    be it gold, salt
or sand

and after
     breaking the ice, whose
depth almost glacial,
formally, with decorum
               as only this miss
shapeshifter can

death and I spoke ghost,
conversed
       in plain Indian

so many tongues and indeed
histories of
    this place, all places

sweet in sad sublimity,
     rolled into one