6130. A PAST TENSE OF WATER

A PAST TENSE OF WATER

(once here, now gone)

Everything for a reason : the college town

rankles, filled with deceit and dissension; 

the resort town bides its time with pleasure.

Such declensions and such dimensions.

Everything at once.

-

Traveling through this town on the back of

an ass won't get you too far  -  bridges are not

high enough here for vanity to pass beneath.

Card-players wince  -  sitting like a million brightly

colored Cezanne imitations; or the one with dogs.

Collateral damage? They're all dead. Like the 

napalm geeks used to say : 'Kill 'em all,

let God sort 'em out.'

-

Now, by contrast, I'm in this padded room alone

-  where no one tends me and I in turn tend no

one else. It's like a past tense of water, only

now drying out  -  I could swear someone

else was here. There are only faint traces,

if I had to prove a case : a dampness, mud,

and a ring of stain from something in the

past. Once here, now gone.