* * * *
POETS
all sentences begin with CAPITAL
letters & end with a period;
Unless they are not sentences:
rather thought patterns -
Unless the peacock taking a shit
on your front lawn
is not really a peacock
but rather a phoenix
in the 3rd stage of rebirth
it may be [ee cummings] established
protocol for someone other than the
holy Academics:
we who also bleed real blood,
who are dissidents, dreamers,
rebels & (god forgiven them) factory workers.
Unless the turtle that sees the river
as a highway is in fact
the new Messiah.
comas could be transformed into fingers
God uses to pick his nose.
exclamation points: thunder
HE throws at the devil!
it is true, most of us are worms
struggling for survival, unworthy
a place in Anthologies.
Some of us delight in that
freedom of ambiguity.
05:31:00
* * * *
LAMENT: FOR BARBARA JEAN
you have gone beyond the darkness
we knew, taken your magic
& perfect voice into the voids.
you knew i would be unable to follow.
you left only a phone number -
where an angry Spanish speaking woman
tells me to call no more.
this is her number now.
i do not even attempt an explanation.
how do you explain the failed
language of romance?
the wind whispers threnody.
what i had given you decades ago
were the last 3 pure pieces of my soul.
have you merely misplaced them,
dropped them out of yellowing newspapers
into the rancid lake
where gulls pecked upon them
as if they were a dead thing?
or have you boxed them
with old books you will never read again,
& merely forgotten them - now in storage
in a Chicago lot, where rats make a home -
you no longer even interested in finding the keys.
what am i to do?
my love, my dreams, all in tatters.
i am like a hobo in the rain,
no longer dreaming,
merely surviving.
* * * *
(C) Kenn Mitchell