A Rachel Sherwood Poem

Lock and Key

I hardly know where to look
anymore. Places have a
putrid familiarity
like the smell of my own sheets
or the close air of the kitchen —
fishbones on the drain
left in the ghastly order
of temporal things.

I have been sitting in this bar
for years now
the beer is stale, the wine off-color
the music is always the same,
old, sad songs that get older
no better than endless conversation
night after forgotten night
when all I or you can recall
is the dark, the traffic lights,
the bartender's comments
about drunk women
in public places.

I would like to go home
finally, down the long streets
north and south crossed with small gold leaves;
I forget just where the hell
anything is. Locked out.


(1981)

A Heather McHugh Poem

The Oven Loves the TV Set

Stuck on the fridge, our favorite pin-up girl
is anorexic. On the radio we have a riff

of Muzak sax, and on the mind
a self-help book. We sprawl all evening, all

alone, in the unraised ranch;
all day the company we kept

kept on incorporating. As for the world
of poverty, we did our best, thanks

to a fund of Christian feeling
and mementos from

Amelia, the foster child, who has
the rags and seven photogenic sisters we prefer

in someone to be saved. She's proof
Americans have got a heart

to go with all that happy
acumen you read about. We're known to love

a million little prettinesses,
decency, and ribbons on

the cockapoo. (But who
will study alphabets for hands? Who gives

a damn what patience goes into
a good wheelchair? Who lugs the rice

from its umpteen stores
to the ends of the earth, to even

one dead-end? Not we.)
Our constitutional pursuit

is happiness, i.e.
somebody nice, and not

too fat, we can have
for our personal friend.


(1994)

POEM: "Live At The Kanpur Station"

Live At The Kanpur Station


If it's the winter solstice today, then light
tomorrow will last three seconds longer

And if by bad luck you keep your calendar
some nights had better disappear forever

The Monkey Mind and Its Hopping Motives
is it better to be unknowable than popular?

Not even sure that we live in a secular age
we can’t be that stupid unless we mean to

No creature should be left behind, none
should be hungry or ignorant of danger

Do I even believe confusion was a fake egg
and all we have left in our yard is no feathers?

Better to love and burn, to crash and lose
than cross these tracks and miss the sun

A monkey rescues its electrocuted friend
and here we sit scratching this abiding itch

The days get hotter and the clocks get broken
if one dream at a time, then just more time.

A great beggar has spoken, then two idlers
then a philosopher with a restless camera.


                                                    December 22, 2014

© 2014 Rob Schackne

PHOTO: Tariq Sawyer (2014)

Kazakh-Mongolian nomad in the Altai Mountains, Mongolia.

photo: Tariq Sawyer

POEM: "Somedays Don't Even Bother"

Somedays Don’t Even Bother


Inside the cage
everyone is equal
it’s very funny
the first question
from non-writers
half-listening
from politeness
and by the jealous
by the chancers
by the malicious
and even by lovers
You published?


© 2014 Rob Schackne

A Matthew Olzmann Poem

Letter to the Horse You Rode In On

From this day forth, let it be understood: as one
of God’s most graceful innovations, you—
dear horse—are entitled to certain provisions
under the law. Granted, this law is one
I just made up, but those who acknowledge
its validity will adhere to the following rule:
One does not, under any circumstance, say “fuck you”
to a horse. It matters not who rode in on
the aforementioned steed. It matters not
what kind of jackassery said rider has committed.
We shall not allow even the tangential “fuck you”
to be cast upon this virtuous and sophisticated being,
such as the fuck-you-by-association commonly
phrased as: Fuck you and the horse you rode in on.
No, dear horse, you are proof that one does not
have the luxury of choosing the burden one carries.
Fate makes an animal of us all, and rides us
through the village at sunrise where we are judged.
But we designed those villages. We built them
from our worst ideas and kept expanding until
each enclave was equipped with genetically modified
pigeons and flammable tap water. The human hand
can reach from one ruined thing to the next. It can
level cities and wave goodbye and run its fingers
through your mane, and when I find you, I will
whisper: You would’ve done a better job with this place.
Unfortunately, horses don’t have any say in governance.
Except once. It’s said that the emperor Caligula
nominated his horse, Incitatus, as a Roman Consul.
We should also note: Caligula’s reign was brief.
37-41 AD. Then he was slain.


(2014)

A Jennifer Michael Hecht Poem (2)

Not Stopping by the Woods on a Snowy Evening

I

Promises to keep was a lie, he had nothing. Through
the woods. Over the river and into the pain. It is an addict's
talk of quitting as she's smacking at a vein. He was always
going into the woods. It was he who wrote, The best way

out is always through. You'd think a shrink, but no, a poet.
He saw the woods and knew. The forest is the one that holds
promises. The woods are lovely, dark, and deep, they fill
with a quiet snow. Miles are traveled as we sleep. He steers

his horse off the road. Among the trees now, the blizzard
is a dusting. Holes in the canopy make columns of snowstorm,
lit from above. His little horse thinks it is queer. They go
deeper, sky gets darker. It's the darkest night of the year.

II

He had no promises to keep, nothing pending. Had no bed
to head to, measurably away in miles. He was a freak like me,
monster of the dawn. Whose woods these are I think I know,
his house is in the village though. In the middle of life

he found himself lost in a dark woods. I discovered myself
in a somber forest. In between my breasts and breaths I got
lost. The woods are lovely, dark and deep. But I've got promises
to keep, smiles to go before I leap. I'm going into the woods.

They're lovely dark, and deep, which is what I want, deep lovely
darkness. No one has asked, let alone taken, a promise of me,
no one will notice if I choose bed or rug, couch or forest deep.
It doesn't matter where I sleep. It doesn't matter where I sleep.


(2013)

POEM: "Cat's Cradle"

Cat's Cradle

How long did the moment last

when we played cat's cradle for hours
while it rained. It's not string theory
it's the twisting of long white string
in the dance in our hands, halting
one form before it becomes the next

How we shaped our agreement
with only a suggested movement
of struggling beauty. Inevitable that
this old cradle would have our soul
pick one here and stretch one there
the cats were fingers that held it all

Errant topology, scattered maps
lost directions, a stuttering of tears
foot-on-accelerator, foot-on-brake
took us to unexpected places. But no
the invisible games we played were
unseemly too. And they were as futile

As writing a novel about scissors. But it
seemed like we’d be wed forever and our
clothes washed together for 30 years. Well
the cats cradled with the big knife next to
the hammer. With the old hammer next to
the matches. With the matches next to you.


© 2014 Rob Schackne

POEM: "Going For A Walk"

Going For A Walk

                                       Pawned my guitar so many times
                                          It’s a crying shame…

Like seeing something
In the window that’s yours
But it’s not really a window
And yeah it isn’t really a shop
And yeah it’s not really yours
It belongs to a really big fat guy
Married to an even fatter woman
And yeah neither one loves the blues
The wind of the world against the shroud
And what's still left out there in the cold
If only you had enough for a hot dog
(If only they had better management)
Because of a rainy Monday afternoon
Because of the troubles of your own
Because it isn't your guitar anymore
And you're not really going for a walk
Money's not a mystery I need 5 dollars
Yeah the rhythm of this falling rain
Are in the secrets waiting everywhere.


© 2014 Rob Schackne

POEM: "A Definition of Homelessness"

A Definition of Homelessness


A person, place or thing
words of misfortune modify
declaim but don't support

O me, o my, you'll never see
the wreckage where I sleep
or the carnage of my dreams

The shopping carts, the air tickets
the black dog that my brother hates
a noisy apartment, fractious neighbors

The fork of my life
has become too short
and my fingers are getting dirty

You can't understand me
and words of anger modify
the words of loss


© 2014 Rob Schackne

A Mary Avidano Poem

City Lights 


My father, rather a quiet man,
told a story only the one time,
if even then—he had so little
need, it seemed, of being understood.
Intervals of years, his silences!
Late in his life he recalled for us
that when he was sixteen, his papa
entrusted to him a wagonload
of hogs, which he was to deliver
to the train depot, a half-day’s ride
from home, over a hilly dirt road.
Lightly he held the reins, light his heart,
the old horses, as ever, willing.
In town at noon he heard the station-
master say the train had been delayed,
would not arrive until that evening.
The boy could only wait. At home they’d
wait for him and worry and would place
the kerosene lamp in the window.
Thus the day had turned to dusk before
he turned about the empty wagon,
took his weary horses through the cloud
of fireflies that was the little town.
In all his years he’d never seen those
lights—he thought of this, he said, until
he and his milk-white horses came down
the last moonlit hill to home, drawn as
from a distance toward a single flame.

(2013)

POEM: "The Big Cat Show"

The Big Cat Show 


The big cat show, see wronged cops
travel to the capital to kill themselves
you breathe one sigh and say for what
they’re arrested after drinking poison

All their lives, their guts hammered
see held against their will in hospital
see survival punished, don’t do it again
(an awful press gets away with murder)

See happy man has no past and maybe
see unhappy man has got nothing else
and you are a solid citizen of the world
and nothing you see can ever freeze you

See in Amerika the black man is feared
Lord see the lawful moment is absent
look he is killed by a police who swore
to be righteous before this world ends.


© 2014 Rob Schackne

POEM: "Monday At The Germbar After Work"

Monday At The Germbar After Work 

“There is no epiphany or revelation or aha moment or big click. There is no redemption. There is no great lesson learned. There is only the unknowable and the unspeakable.”

                                                                      Meghan Daum (2014)


I don’t know. I was killed. I died and I came back
And what I didn’t know about it was so immense
That the huge gap reached out to become a teacher
Of dreams and invisible beauty. True I lost track a lot
So many languages were spoken. Some I understood
Some clicked me knowable, some clicked me unspeakable
(Afterwards of course one must return and get on with it)
I never spoke of epiphanies or redemption. Anyway it is
Poor manners to flush an aha moment & not give it a chance
And although (of course) it's quite impossible to give as a present
I got very involved in writing poetry. I bring a message back
Sit you down in a silent classroom at dusk. The one alone
I expected nothing but death. I had the grace of surprise.


© 2014 Rob Schackne

POEM: "New Note"

New Note

               LA BEAUTÉ EST DANS LA RUE
                                   

New note. Derive in the streets
This note. Non-related dancing
Performing a nervous situation
When all is cut and struggling
Show, don’t tell. What rubbish
This lyrical divide. With no song
You couldn’t put your shoes on
Your animal mask would warp
All Fall was born and died in Fall
Don’t ask me why I still sell fruit
Because I have no more appetite
Just park your red body over there
Between the red bicycle and the
Red bulldozer. Pay me later with
A poem that belongs to the world
With a crooked life that walks the way
A dog looks at me. Watch the tail
This rainy day reads and writes it
The subway EXIT is a holy name.


© 2014 Rob Schackne

POEM: "Awed (I)"

Awed (I)

                              

We do I guess because others don’t 

Because the others gave up too early 
Sound drove them on like the drone of bees 
They ran out and covered their heads. 

So take away music, take away words 
Take away the colours and the birds
Steal love and steal the seasons too
How much the spectrum changes.

That field of corn 
would never see a plow
that field of corn 
would be deserted now
a man is born 
but he's no good no-how
without a song

Slam through time, study the light
Shake it till it rattles no more. Shout
Like there's no tomorrow. Scream away
The rough bits and crackles. Why do I care?

The torch is out. The wind is up. You
And me, us and them, antidote of the anger
Dark is done. After silence, after violence
The stranger emerges alive and well.

What? My inspiration is under my arm 
It's behind my knees, in a cup of coffee
It’s in your cup of coffee. Productive?
I don’t think so. It’s almost everywhere.


© 2014 Rob Schackne

_______________

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OGH34KW2v4I&index=6&list=PL295AF154086CF7BE

A Richard Blanco Poem

América

I.

Although Tía Miriam boasted she discovered
at least half a dozen uses for peanut butter—
topping for guava shells in syrup,
butter substitute for Cuban toast,
hair conditioner and relaxer—
Mamá never knew what to make
of the monthly five-pound jars
handed out by the immigration department
until my friend, Jeff, mentioned jelly.

II.

There was always pork though,
for every birthday and wedding,
whole ones on Christmas and New Year's Eve,
even on Thanksgiving day—pork,
fried, broiled, or crispy skin roasted—
as well as cauldrons of black beans,
fried plantain chips, and yuca con mojito.
These items required a special visit
to Antonio's Mercado on the corner of Eighth Street
where men in guayaberas stood in senate
blaming Kennedy for everything—"Ese hijo de puta!"
the bile of Cuban coffee and cigar residue
filling the creases of their wrinkled lips;
clinging to one another's lies of lost wealth,
ashamed and empty as hollow trees.

III.

By seven I had grown suspicious—we were still here.
Overheard conversations about returning
had grown wistful and less frequent.
I spoke English; my parent's didn't.
We didn't live in a two-story house
with a maid or a wood-panel station wagon
nor vacation camping in Colorado.
None of the girls had hair of gold;
none of my brothers or cousins
were named Greg, Peter, or Marcia;
we were not the Brady Bunch.
None of the black and white characters
on Donna Reed or on the Dick Van Dyke Show
were named Guadalupe, Lázaro, or Mercedes.
Patty Duke's family wasn't like us either—
they didn't have pork on Thanksgiving,
they ate turkey with cranberry sauce;
they didn't have yuca, they had yams
like the dittos of Pilgrims I colored in class.

IV.

A week before Thanksgiving
I explained to my abuelita
about the Indians and the Mayflower,
how Lincoln set the slaves free;
I explained to my parents about
the purple mountain's majesty,
"one if by land, two if by sea,"
the cherry tree, the tea party,
the amber waves of grain,
the "masses yearning to be free,"
liberty and justice for all, until
finally they agreed:
this Thanksgiving we would have turkey,
as well as pork.

V.

Abuelita prepared the poor fowl
as if committing an act of treason,
faking her enthusiasm for my sake.
Mamá set a frozen pumpkin pie in the oven
and prepared candied yams following instructions
I translated from the marshmallow bag.
The table was arrayed with gladiolas,
the plattered turkey loomed at the center
on plastic silver from Woolworth's.
Everyone sat in green velvet chairs
we had upholstered with clear vinyl,
except Tío Carlos and Toti, seated
in the folding chairs from the Salvation Army.
I uttered a bilingual blessing
and the turkey was passed around
like a game of Russian Roulette.
"DRY," Tío Berto complained, and proceeded
to drown the lean slices with pork fat drippings
and cranberry jelly—"esa mierda roja," he called it.
Faces fell when Mamá presented her ochre pie—
pumpkin was a home remedy for ulcers, not a dessert.
Tía María made three rounds of Cuban coffee
then Abuelo and Pepe cleared the living room furniture,
put on a Celia Cruz LP and the entire family
began to merengue over the linoleum of our apartment,
sweating rum and coffee until they remembered—
it was 1970 and 46 degrees—
in América.
After repositioning the furniture,
an appropriate darkness filled the room.
Tío Berto was the last to leave.


(1998)

PHOTO: Tyler Hicks (2011)

A part of a war. A raid on the village of Alam Khel, Afghanistan, in 2011.

_____________

For another insight, please read Elizabeth D. Samet:

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/23/opinion/sunday/when-is-a-war-over.html

A Jennifer Michael Hecht Poem (1)

Funny Strange

We are tender and our lives are sweet

and they are already over and we are
visiting them in some kind of endless
reprieve from oblivion, we are walking
around in them and after we shatter
with love for everything we settle in.

Thou tiger on television chowing,
thou very fact of dreams, thou majestical
roof fretted with golden fire. Thou wisdom
of the inner parts. Thou tintinnabulation.

Is it not sweet to hand over the ocean's
harvest in a single wave of fish? To bounce
a vineyard of grapes from one's apron
and into the mouth of the crowd? To scoop up
bread and offer up one's armful to the throng?
Let us live as if we were still among

the living, let our days be patterned after
theirs. Is it not marvelous to be forgetful?

(2003)

POEM: "Private Man One Evening At The Club"

Private Man One Evening At The Club
                                      
                                 “The final value of action is, that it is a resource.” 
                                            Ralph Waldo Emerson

The mist gathers in advance of the storm
Nature is closing down. Things go quiet
Rain begins. The soul has found its resource
Two little bugs bouncing on the high seas
In the cup on the hard 14th hole. Which part 
Of the strange universe is part of this world
"Let nothing disturb you. Patience gains all things."
Draw the golden curtains. Ring up room service
Take a shower. Get shampoo in both my eyes
Lobster à la fanculo. Bananas aux pommes frites
Sweet sparkling wine. Forget being empty
Remember a story about Saint Teresa de Ávila
Slip out of the perfect bath. Fall heavily on my hip
Limp to the telephone. Lightning shock.


© 2014 Rob Schackne

MUSIC: Jimmy Ruffin, "What Becomes Of The Brokenhearted" (1965)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UQU4sIn96M4&list=RDUQU4sIn96M4#t=0

You're right. "The song had the kind of words one can feel." As you sang it for the millions who have walked home, on nights too dark to see, asking the question. And for the millions who got their answers. RIP.

POEM: "A True And Fitting Thing"

A True And Fitting Thing


I once hooked up with a contortionist
Whacko, she was extended twenty-six
With legs that almost reached her middle
She cuddled my days and bent my nights
Each small woe bridged and stretched us over
(Ah, you don’t believe how well heaven fits)
We rolled from that one here to this one there
Unbelievable when the circus moved to applaud
May to December, well it was crazy as a bucket
A little bit wonderful, well it was way out of hand
And the old sea sighed when it thought for a while
Something in nature stirred, and then it stopped
A limb wobbled, a joint detached that shouldn’t have
The birds went still, not one would leave the nest
(What's true, Lord knows what we invested in)
There was a quick rescheduling of itineraries
But if to leave is only to run a little faster then
It's a true and fitting thing at the end of day
I gave up almost all her tricks, she got away
I doubt that I shall care so much again.


© 2014 Rob Schackne

A Bill Knott Poem

The Consolations of Sociobiology

                                                             
                                         (to JK)

Those scars rooted me. Stigmata stalagmite

I sat at a drive-in and watched the stars
Through a straw while the Coke in my lap went
Waterier and waterier. For days on end or

Nights no end I crawled on all fours or in
My case no fours to worship you: Amoeba Behemoth.
—Then you explained your DNA calls for
Meaner genes than mine and since you are merely

So to speak its external expression etcet
Ergo among your lovers I’ll never be ...
Ah that movie was so faraway the stars melting

Made my thighs icy. I see: it’s not you
Who is not requiting me, it’s something in you
Over which you have no say says no to me.

(1983)

A Bill Knott Poem (2)

Weltende Variation #I

                                 (homage Jacob van Hoddis)

The CIA and the KGB exchange Christmas cards
A blade snaps in two during an autopsy
The bouquet Bluebeard gave his first date reblooms
Many protest the public stoning of a guitar pick

Railroad trains drop off the bourgeois’ pointy head
A martyr sticks a coffeecup out under a firehose
Moviestars make hyenas lick their spaceship
God’s hand descends into a glove held steady by the police

At their reunion The New Faces recognize each other
A spoiled child sleeps inside a thermometer
A single misprint in a survival manual kills everyone
The peace night makes according to the world comes

(1989)

MUSIC: Arthur Conley, "Sweet Soul Music" (1967)

Get up. Uh. Wait a sec. Uh. Yeah. I'm dancing now!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q8btOw69-Ow

A Ben Belitt Poem

Veteran's Day

Bringing “only what is needed—essential
toilet articles” in a paper bag,
dressed as for dying, one sees the dying plainly.
These are the homecomings of Agamemnon,
the odysseys to the underside of the web
that weaves and unweaves while the suitors gorge upon plenty
and the languishing sons at home unwish their warring
fathers with strong electric fingers.

                                                                       The fathers are failing.

In the Hospital Exchange, one sees the dying plainly:
color televisions, beach towels, automatic razors—
the hardware of the affluent society marked
down to cost, to match the negative afflatus
of the ailing, the bandages and badges of their status.
Under the sandbags, rubber hoses, pipettes, bed-clamps,
tax-exempt, amenable as rabbits,
the unenlisted men are bleeding through their noses
in a perimeter of ramps and apparatus.

In that prosthetic world, the Solarium
lights up a junk-pile of used parts: the hip that caught
a ricochet of shrapnel; tattoos in curing meats;
scars like fizzled fuses; canceled postage stamps;
automated claws in candy; the Laser’s edge; and barium.
The nurses pass like mowers, dressing and
undressing in the razor-sharp incisions
and the flowering phosphorescence. The smell
of rubbing alcohol rises on desertions and deprivals
and divorces. It is incorruptible. A wheelchair aims
its hospital pajamas like a gun-emplacement.

The amputee is swinging in his aviary.
His fingers walk the bird-bars.

                                                                        There is singing
from the ward room—a buzzing of transistors
like blueflies in a urinal. War over war,
the expendables of Metz and Chateau-Thierry,
the guerillas of Bien Hoa and Korea,
the draftees, the Reserves, the re-enlisters,
open a common wavelength.
                                                          The catatonic
sons are revving up their combos in the era
of the angry adolescent. Their cry is electronic.
Their thumbs are armed with picks. The acid-rock guitarist
in metal studs and chevrons, bombed with magnesium,
mourns like a country yokel, and the innocents
are slaughtered.

                            On the terrace, there are juices
and bananas. The convalescent listens to his
heartbeat. The chaplain and his non-combative daughter
smile by the clubbed plants on the portico.

                                                                “They shall overcome.”

(1970)

POEM: "To My Brother Jack"

To My Brother Jack


Passing time, several jars with you
In a public bar with bashful service
The hours fix the world with glue

Watching glasses fracture as we see
Dead end on that path of solution
Flat lines, the end of our capacity

Lead on past our dreams, behold
By this deaf of night, duplications
& why we march in darkness, cold.


© 2012 Rob Schackne

POEM: "Idle Thoughts On A Sunday"

Idle Thoughts On A Sunday

                                               for Chris Harvey

Screaming children run from their souls
their voices pitch them ever closer to hell
(the misfortune to be born too soon too late)
though if they were lost we couldn't be having
this conversation you & me here like this
subway demons are exorcised by the wind
the screech of brakes the lucky fireworks
in this incomplete disguise of indifference
we sit on long benches and count the stops
(we were never lost or we'd not be talking now)
yes it's true we're too slow to flee our souls
and true that conversation advances knowledge
and while misfortune will go running to distraction
though we count the stops we're never lost
(it's my stop here I must get off)


© 2014 Rob Schackne

A Jane Hirshfield Poem

Like the Small Hole by the Path-Side Something Lives in

Like the small hole by the path-side something lives in,
in me are lives I do not know the names of,

nor the fates of,
nor the hungers of or what they eat.

They eat of me.
Of small and blemished apples in low fields of me
whose rocky streams and droughts I do not drink.

And in my streets—the narrow ones,
unlabeled on the self-map—
they follow stairs down music ears can’t follow,

and in my tongue borrowed by darkness,
in hours uncounted by the self-clock,
they speak in restless syllables of other losses, other loves.

There too have been the hard extinctions,
missing birds once feasted on and feasting.

There too must be machines
like loud ideas with tungsten bits that grind the day.

A few escape. A mercy.

They leave behind
small holes that something unweighed by the self-scale lives in.


(2012)

POEM: "A Soldier's Cough"

A Soldier’s Cough


Head feels like a drum when it’s scratched
Left ear still sore after a blow 25 years ago
A throat that lost its whisper song and shout
A lonely whisker creeps to just below the eye
The neck that shook the bridge for days is weak
The old chest looks full but the heart is hollow
Comrades tell me that vitamins will put it right
(Pity the right side doesn’t quite match the left)
Broken leg the pelvis spine back knees and feet
Sore from a million steps in the wrong direction
The cough that alerts the dog who begins to bark
The doctors say there will be no more fighting
I climb the stairs to my apartment every day
Grateful my spectacles still see you waving
While you hang the wind in your white clothes.


© 2014 Rob Schackne

PHOTO: Tom Jenkins (2014)

Not really a photograph as much as a painting. If I was as good as this, I'd leave the writing game for a while and go play alto sax late nights in a basement jazz club.

photo: Tom Jenkins

PIECES: Sheila Melvin, "Two or Three Things about Mr. Lu Xun" (2014); Pankaj Mishra, "The Western Model Is Broken" (2014)

Ms Melvin's fine piece goes into my Abiding Admiration for Lu Xun file. Mr Pankaj Mishra as usual turns an intelligent screw. He might even be channelling Lu Xun. Below is an old thing of mine, small (and certainly out of breath) in such company.

http://english.caixin.com/2014-10-31/100745459.html

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/oct/14/-sp-western-model-broken-pankaj-mishra?CMP=fb_gu

........................................

To Lu Xun, From The Iron House

Locked inside the iron house

Seventeen others are snoring

There are no windows anywhere

No ventilation means we’re dying

(Getting sleepy too, I’ll lie down soon)

We have attempted the Big Breakout

We have filled our bodies with Blood

We have hammered and screamed for it

It? I mean of course we went for our lives

Like threshing machines, no help for it

No one from outside came to our rescue

No friends, no lovers, no family came

Though at one point we imagined voices

Crying a strange word that sounded like KEEZ

Which we all stripped buck naked for

Which we shook our dictionaries for

Which we questioned the waiting children for

And we looked deep into each other’s eyes.

  

© 2013 Rob Schackne