Friday, December 21, 2012

4037. OVERLAPPING STORIES

OVERLAPPING 
STORIES
Chiselhurst and Benson, Hartfield
and Troy, any of these names would
do : and just as well. We are harnassed
to our own delights.
-
I've seen such old magics in the mud -
all those early, early cars bogged down
and caught. My tiller-driven Olds will
make a nothing of you. If it's Dayton
you want, this will have to do.
-
Here we are, again, all the same
but in another world. Like those
tarnishers and marksmen we read
about, we make our meek adjustments
to what this feeble world will throw our
way. Old women die. Old women stay.
-
The light is shining darkly onto that
varnished table  -  where people linger,
where people talk. In this air today, there
is too much kindness to go around : it seeps
from gashes in the flesh, from all those tender
parts we walk around with. I am not your
messenger, just your Joe, and if you confuse
me with any more than that I will have to go.
-
And, oh, have I told you? This is now a new
and different world I am about to enter.
The old one just will no longer do.

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