Life's most meaningful when it is hollow and lonely, I guess. The rest is just crap. One night, alone and empty, you get a reprieve and the music comes, then the emotions, and everything is sad and full and wonderful. It is what I have. It is what I've always wanted, I guess. It is what I get.
What can you do?
You who have everything else, or even enough of it, can be smug. I'll be the romantic loser you can measure your successes against. I'll be the thing that makes you feel better about the life you've had. I'll be life's example. You can have the rest.
Fare thee well.
ReplyDeleteDay 1 National Poetry Month (I am writing but didn't write this)
As Ever As Ever
By Charlie Smith
I step back from the homespun,
the naturally dyed. Fresh vegetables
unnerve me with their husks
and peelings and little ruddy bits
to save for compost. Grass stains
and leaves choke the gutters and
berries ponk ponk and you can't
remember what you were thinking
bark chafes and flesh if you eat it
lies like a lump of chalcedony in
your gut, stopping the action.
Wind grieves at the corners of
the house and rain distills pity
to a purity that is irresistible and
poison. All know a flower's dumb stare.
Fruit is home for small black worms.
Trees thrive in mass groupings
that close behind you and shudder
and stir complex imaginings
we are wholly unsuited for. Better
a quiet nook uptown. A room
with faded yellow light and Monk
on the piano. The buckle
and belting of life are beside the point.
Bleakness at every turn.
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