A poem by Marc Vincenz |
by Andrei Codrescu |
|
For the Shadow Council,
history has no future it’s more testament than tenacity more tenement than transience
an illusion of Earth standing on its head
like the old codger who collects in the underpass connecting and the late cars squawking overhead
and what of the rusty cup and the mangy dog?
obligatory for a man who fights for poems by firelight
and she never once reincarnated
she who smells of forgetfulness and TV dinners
she who carries the cart to the hypermart for dented cans and cold cream
and he he with the scar under his left eye
the crew-cut and the crescent and teardrop tattoo always crying to the moon always ready to die
and on the way home to the other side where beer was once served lukewarm
she another she carries the touch of men’s hair and fingers
filaments of inbreeding breathing through layers and skins
reeking of old men’s fables of survivors and war heroes
and though their ghosts have vanished
shadows still drag behind like bats
transmuting along the corridors
swooping above flagpoles lining the concourse with their indelible silence |
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