WORLD
WORLD…
World, you burden me with your sleep.
That blue fly, grooming itself next to the mattress reflects back to me my time as an exile, walking the streets of the town, showering kindness on the elderly, alcoholic cripples, the poor, the homeless-a time when, without a place to relieve myself, the clouds did so on me freely.
In the streets, I used both straps of my pack, went without a jacket in the cold, pretending to be a tourist…
Still, then, as now, no one would touch, much less hold, my hands.
Pretenders to cleanliness, what did I get from you, who are so different from me?
( who eat for pleasure, not survival
communicate as a passtime, not from anguish
buy for leisure, not to find shelter
whose phobias are accessories, not birthmarks )
In the old days they called it ‘woe’. In modern times, it has no name, is just a presence, inescapable, greedy as a tapeworm, but with a more advanced brain
-itch of malaise in the rectum.
Ladies and gentlemen, come forward, bring your appetizers, refill your glasses-the eyes, lips of the head on the spike have been cut away, the heart rests in a crystal bowl of potpourri, the phallus, slit down the middle, spread, has been muzzled. As for the rest…I don’t want to say.
Excuse this outburst from the pit. Don’t be alarmed. Step around if you can. Please.
Go on with your toasts, your slow moving pleasantries.
Submitted: Friday 25 November 2005
From: Anthony Cooke
World, you burden me with your sleep.
That blue fly, grooming itself next to the mattress reflects back to me my time as an exile, walking the streets of the town, showering kindness on the elderly, alcoholic cripples, the poor, the homeless-a time when, without a place to relieve myself, the clouds did so on me freely.
In the streets, I used both straps of my pack, went without a jacket in the cold, pretending to be a tourist…
Still, then, as now, no one would touch, much less hold, my hands.
Pretenders to cleanliness, what did I get from you, who are so different from me?
( who eat for pleasure, not survival
communicate as a passtime, not from anguish
buy for leisure, not to find shelter
whose phobias are accessories, not birthmarks )
In the old days they called it ‘woe’. In modern times, it has no name, is just a presence, inescapable, greedy as a tapeworm, but with a more advanced brain
-itch of malaise in the rectum.
Ladies and gentlemen, come forward, bring your appetizers, refill your glasses-the eyes, lips of the head on the spike have been cut away, the heart rests in a crystal bowl of potpourri, the phallus, slit down the middle, spread, has been muzzled. As for the rest…I don’t want to say.
Excuse this outburst from the pit. Don’t be alarmed. Step around if you can. Please.
Go on with your toasts, your slow moving pleasantries.
Submitted: Friday 25 November 2005
From: Anthony Cooke
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