Look over your shoulder for the hustle of words.


Tuesday, January 23, 2007

The Village

Every foot shuffles slower with each turn of the curb;
there's much to know from feet. They tell us when we stop.

I look into the screen some call a mirror, some call a child,
and laugh myself away from death.
(but father, there's a fracture line around my scalp, and the skin is
peeling, the head no longer marries the hair, and I am ugly
in the village, with my slowing feet)

I have a pot of cream. The top is green, the sides are green, and
only a thousand babies must be crushed to have it.
Don't worry for their blood, they are like angels, they are like lotus:
they float into death with upturned bliss at the wonder
of giving me youth. Bless them, curse them, bless them.

(but father, the cream has melted in the sun and now my slip
is thick with it. The silk, the cream, the fucking green!
I'm not convinced, I'm covered in it, I'm caving in,
I'm in the village and now my ugly feet have stuck)

Old men spit and slur against the walls.
They smell like booze, they piss-reek and their mouths
are full of bullet holes.
But somehow, unlike me,
their clothes seem clean;
their feet are dancing.

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