Bill Roberts at Bottle of Smoke Press in Deleware is going to do a chapbook at some point of my work. It will be called private archeology. BOS does excellent work and I am honored.
PAIN IN ITS OWN CITY
They have left us alone.
The ice itself is quiet,
No shrieking or whooping moves
Through it. Even the wind has left
It alone like the end of a story.
The skin begins to seem less
Of a barrier and more like chordal
Movements in an adagio for strings.
Suddenly there is plenty of room left to just
Sit with the others by the sides
Of the road and listen to the questions
Posed to us by the travelers.
We do not wonder any longer.
This place was once a city.
When we look now it still seems so.
We can see the ghost buildings through
The rubble, think the dark crows, swans,
The crying of the children, the kind of dreaming
Worth remembering. We have come too far
To leave this place now. Some still
Fight with each other for a place
To sleep or possession of a blanket.
We look toward the palace, wondering
What it will be like there. No one
Remembers being unhappy. Every room
Seems full and bound to memory
As waves to the flat sea surrounding
Us. Superstitions abound, collecting
souls to form desires one can still
See as they take on faces, erase others
Or are erased themselves. They mingle
With their pain to give it form
To fill the places where the soul suddenly
Becomes empty and obvious, left
On a corner or in a doorway without
Any of its moments intact. They disrobe
And claim to be princes and high ranking
Women who came here long ago and now
Possess all the things they see around them.
We see sand and those things that cause
Unhappiness. We wish them possibilities.
They truly think we are only songs.
