USING A PRISMACOLOR #1 FINE LINE MARKER, BLACK

March 01, 2015 / John Grimmett

My daily exorcism
is writing the forget-me-nots
in the margins of the New York Times.

A pliant testimony
built on crying children
and their screaming mothers
("this is how you act / stop crying!"),
these are the words deep within a life
absent of words meaning anything,
the drone of a tenor saxophone
with a broken reed
or a plea for help
or a blaring boom box
replacing any thought,
any action,
any move,
any forward tactic,
any resolve
that predicates substance.

I would drag my knuckles
three fingers deep into the earth now
if only to know that I am alive
and created something,
if only a trench,
if only a sly, modest burial ground
for hamsters and abandoned childhoods.

I saw a picture of a young boy today --
maybe three or four years old --
on his way to the first day of school,
his education formally begun
as the starch of his shirtsleeves
cut through the crisp campaign
for a cool autumn.

Life goes on.

And here I sit,
scrawling little symbols into sidelines of permanence,
my only way of coping
with the bleak headlines of today,
full of the same child-like curiosity,
an ear pressed to the door of tomorrow,
an eye looking back
to where I can no longer go.

Unless otherwise indicated, all materials on these pages are copyrighted by the author. All rights reserved. No part of these pages, either text or image may be used for any purpose other than personal use. Therefore, reproduction, modification, storage in a retrieval system or retransmission, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical or otherwise, for reasons other than personal use, is strictly prohibited without prior written permission.

0 Likes

tags / poem, poems, poetry, writing