Am I beyond anger? Am I a rose?
Once I met a woman
with a whiskery chin
Drinking problem,
domineering husband, very thin
Wrote too; I thought
she was old
I’m that age now
Googled her name —
dead three years,
Obit. and all,
behind the past’s wall.
The sun is a blood
clot on the skyline
Let justice be done
Very fine, Robbie. "Behind the past, the wall"?
ReplyDeletethanks, Rob. I wasn't sure about that line either — will have to think about it.
ReplyDeleteScary, old age and poetry, facial hair. The past's wall is odd but makes you think. The wall of the past. The past is a wall.
ReplyDeleteA wall made thicker every day.
ReplyDeleteyes, 'the past's wall' pulled me up too - 'the' definite article works like a formal structural impediment we want to skip over quickly in the poem for the sake of a subjective lyricism but I think/feel it should stay - perhaps because it forestalls the ability to return in the desire to go back, precisely at the point/moment we look back?
ReplyDeleteActually, you put it pithily in your comment above :)
Yes, 'a wall made thicker every day' is the ticket!
ReplyDelete