Contents
I. |
In the Dialectic of Over and Under Truth in the Larger Sense “Lives in the Balance” On Death, and Dying’s Threshold “Give Me Men to Match my Mountains” Going-to-the-Sun “But Eternity Remains” Convergence of Time and Distance Tantum Ergo Blood of My Blood Only the Rational Is Real Ecce Homo |
Other Ways to Read
Tarlton Reads from the Chapbook
Other Matters
About the author
About the Artist
1
not you,
to the end unsmiling,
unable to fly;
no, it wasn’t you
the flophouse prince
brought mountains
of uncooked flesh
wrapped in folds
of his own loose skin:
but it was
something, all right —
sad fake flowers,
crudely textured
cast off rope,
shriveled, unwanted
dugs, their anger spewed
in everyone’s face,
what strained to be
2
reborn, escaping
shards of quietus,
shattering
calm, shredding
landscape, a bone
rattling a bell;
echoes that fade away.
holding up discarded
soaked, stained bandages,
I sank my hands
to their wrists
in that sadness,
blocking death’s access,
finding little
in the empty wound —
a spreading
of cold fingers
probing shadows,
scarecrow phantoms,
fluttering tatters.
