Tuesday, May 8, 2012

3638. THE OLD SCHOOL TIES

THE OLD SCHOOL TIES
I have to admit (wind swells, trees twist)
I never know what men talk about when
they say that (shutters slap, water pools).
And what do I care anyway? Five generations
of the same stupid people, over and over.
-
Linen, aspic and lime. Three things without
meaning (geese overhead, low, cackling in
flight; the blind V formation breaking away).
There is nothing sublime in Man as a kind.
-
They buried the carpenter under his willow tree.
They burned his house to the ground, then calling
it purification  -  his disease, it was said, had
already infected five others; (on high, the white
plume of a far-bound jet, in silence). I look
over to the right and see what could be a scene
from 150 years ago : twelve cows at rest in
a muddy, grassed field. Nothing of the modern
age at all  -  an old wooden fence, the bare and
worn path, rutted, the lazing cows, chewing.
-
If I can bring you something, please tell me
what it is ( a man lights a bonfire in the middle
of an open field. What he is burning, like a
mystery, in a second intensely flares. The
wind catches the fire quickly, spreading
hot embers everywhere).

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