138. Coal Workers

Easy to
regard dirtied
blue-collar workers
with a wry
eye –
there is certainly
something
that makes us
special,
protected:

Clothed in warm
furs,
Tchaikovsky
flitting between our ears
via iPods,
iPads –

After a fall,
we pick ourselves
up late at night,
completely vulnerable;

we
realize:
this is life,
happy or
less so,
it carries on in its
drab
shades…

Forced to confront the
reality of our condition,
the frigid weather,
the boring country and its
resolute permanence

We look at ourselves
and the grey walls and
wonder, how much is
delusion?

How many escapist
stories have we told
ourselves to escape
these
cold winters,
dry summers?

The geese flee
and return
as we ponder these
Grecian thoughts,
not insensitive
nor enlightened;
but better off that
way,
perhaps.

114. Souvenirs

Lascivious poppies,
lusty in the sombre fields:
spill their irony in the
autumn frost,
shades of shameful
red –

Long have I envied their
reckless belligerence,
perching on some foreign shore,
immune to guilt, regret,
and melancholy:

No – guiltless in their wild
beauty,
trampled, laid to rest beside their
human brethren, forever bear the
burdens of their
art –

Fatal beauty
grows across the silenced fields;
echoes resonate between the
rustling stems,
silent in eternal
grief,
gazing on the frozen
graves:

Curious, unknowing,
woebegone:
cast in strange and
lasting
penance –

Generations strive to
recollect,
remember;
generations strive to
lose and
forget.

52. The Dead Poets

Society closes up its
doors:
entry is not permitted to
outsiders.

They create a world of
artisans, purported
geniuses,
sipping tea and critiquing
so-and-so's metrics,
etc.

Shameless feminists,
chauvinists, misogynists,
inept politicians, shockers,
potsmokers -
with a limbo-ing sexuality
for good
measure.

Yes, shun me from the
exalted doors:
you, who do not understand
true anguish;
you - who live to see your artless
names in
print:
you -

I am disgusted, revolted
by this lack of Truth,
and this chaotic
struggle for
fame.

You are a cheap wine,
clichéd and overwrought
at best,
bubbling at snooty parties in
NY;
you are the sour milk,
curdling in the
August sun.