PAINTING OCTOBER
I.
'O another day
of image consumption
fashion show graveyard
you wore your
ghost better than
me & my
excessive feelings a
stitch too much
for a green
morning lake that
respects silence &
here I am
existing to ballyhoo
while birds blabber
on South of
hello how we
hum & hear
the three-chord
roar dedicated to
the away stream
gushing into ocean
intermediate morning &
what now do
doctors say my
throat your bones
the spread but
not the seep
hair cut or hair
loss lost &
lone times nothing
repeat & scratched
yellow the days
stretched until night
goes eternal no
longer hello murmur
symphony low fade
nature hum not—
sure, not how
to say so
long how goodbye
I guess when
all the witnesses
go extinct then
the voices are
left to themselves
in an atmosphere
yet not known
II.
My friends hate
writing elegies, they
are too busy to
bother with death
or its constant
cousin grief their
rushing machines always
a buzz every
day the finches
crowd the shrubs
in their trite
trill why write
elegies there is
no spiritual crisis—
we exist the
internet eager &
always open always
burning so they
worship on, or
lean in whisper
into ears the
latest salacious gossip
about so & so
or celebrity such
& such what
do they know
of the sorrow
behind sorrow what
they see is
an orange ball
asleep in a
spot of sun
the shade from
a maple leaf
branch breaks into
smears of light
what of death
do they dare
an ignorance which
blossoms ghosts, their
bones mostly sturdy
life a peppy
pop song eyes
fixed out a
dirty window where
a black squirrel
waves mischievous tail,
or more visions of
youth chattering into
cheap coffee cups
first flowers wilting
& unnoticed so,
III.
My friends hate
writing elegies— too
triggered & weighted
down by all the
ways their parents
& presidents &
patriarchy have ruined
them, or a
Larkin poem I
still misty eye
to revolution it
is said not
elegies all the
systemic failures invoked
to keep suffers
suffering so many
sadomasochists no sign
of equality no
one even believes
in equal unless
math equations &
that too has
groomed its skeptics
why write open
a door desperate
to be kept
shut to remain
ignored if not
fighting for life
then click the
light off let
the silence permeate
a branch is
a branch no
mystics no mysteries
my father's body
in the coffin
my body heavy
flat on a
bed while the
day replays evening
shadow of flower
leaves departed in
a slant between
flesh & lilac
time marks its
elegies or not
the dead remain
dead feelings &
days they rush
on with or
without a poem
flowers await water
to carry my
landscapes a wind
a hill a
release or a
shutting in the
crisis of self
in public attempting
to bridge mourning
not exactly private
or ever even
over ignore the
emailed elegies &
sing in whatever
voice is yours
& yours alone—
TYPO
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