12-10-2013, 02:03 PM
Well, it would take several more hours to write all this down as suggestions, so:
Entropy
Big scared eye, pink, dumb;
he's unobtrusive as a broken clock.
Shocked, I drop my brothers rabbit as he tears
my arm. He thumps his way over to the corner and digs
at the carpet; because my brother's come back home,
numb. Says he talked to his wife today about the law,
of all things. Puzzles over his accounts and slumps
his way into the kitchen for a beer. We don't have any.
I was cutting the hedge at noon today
when I saw the slim end of a tail slide
over broken holly leaves, drifting,
poorly camouflaged. I thought, it's Christmas,
it's cold out; snakes
should all be under rocks,
hidden. And I wondered,
what had woke him and scared him from his hole?
can a snake get cold? Can a snake feel lost?
Once, when wolves would eat the sick,
it was a better world. Now we have guns,
doctors, ammo, medicine, and entropy
alone we trust to kill us,
passively.
My father saw it and took a hoe and chopped its neck.
Or maybe it was some other snake. I don't know.
They all look the same. He tried to toss it by the tail
across the fence, but it got caught in a tree, where it hangs.
I'm raking leaves when my brother finally pulls
in. He looks a lot like normal, but I know
he's not. My father grins and hugs him around the neck
as a cop turns around in the cul-de-sac.
No one finds this place except by accident.
I take off my gloves, and in no time flat, the heat goes out
of them, and I sit down behind a pile of leaves
and pretend I'm somewhere else,
where there is no help,
and there is no need--
Where the wolves would have you long before the grief.
——
I would start here.
Entropy
Big scared eye, pink, dumb;
he's unobtrusive as a broken clock.
Shocked, I drop my brothers rabbit as he tears
my arm. He thumps his way over to the corner and digs
at the carpet; because my brother's come back home,
numb. Says he talked to his wife today about the law,
of all things. Puzzles over his accounts and slumps
his way into the kitchen for a beer. We don't have any.
I was cutting the hedge at noon today
when I saw the slim end of a tail slide
over broken holly leaves, drifting,
poorly camouflaged. I thought, it's Christmas,
it's cold out; snakes
should all be under rocks,
hidden. And I wondered,
what had woke him and scared him from his hole?
can a snake get cold? Can a snake feel lost?
Once, when wolves would eat the sick,
it was a better world. Now we have guns,
doctors, ammo, medicine, and entropy
alone we trust to kill us,
passively.
My father saw it and took a hoe and chopped its neck.
Or maybe it was some other snake. I don't know.
They all look the same. He tried to toss it by the tail
across the fence, but it got caught in a tree, where it hangs.
I'm raking leaves when my brother finally pulls
in. He looks a lot like normal, but I know
he's not. My father grins and hugs him around the neck
as a cop turns around in the cul-de-sac.
No one finds this place except by accident.
I take off my gloves, and in no time flat, the heat goes out
of them, and I sit down behind a pile of leaves
and pretend I'm somewhere else,
where there is no help,
and there is no need--
Where the wolves would have you long before the grief.
——
I would start here.