Tuesday, July 24, 2012

3800. MICHAEL TOMES

MICHAEL TOMES
I want to disengage the grave, and
take the coating off the mountain -
and I used to see glimpses of that
everywhere : the future with no edge;
me standing near a fountain; and you,
with your head in your hands.
-
Now, someone tells me you are dead,
others hand me a notice  -  off in the
wilds of Afghanistan, the tumbled sands
something like this: narrow, blue, pulsing
with blood, scimitars, minarets and mosques,
proud camels, charnel houses, rifles slung
over shoulders padded and proud with War.
I always said you should trade your firebomb
gunfight-army days for the peace of a Jersey
shore or some more solid vacation in Maine.
Take up dance; Kalashnikov traded for Baryshnikov.
-
Looking at a paper now, I realize I know nothing,
and you were always a cipher  -  the long lost dead,
a penny between clenched teeth  -  or, as in old
early photos, the grotesque western bandits, 
bullet-ridden and dead, propped up for one last
photo, one last shot before burial; the boot-hill
cemetery, the pauper's field, or just a grave on
the edge of some dumb, useless town.

No comments: