![]() Based upon Philip Guston’s painting, “Reverse” It is so easy to hide your less attractive counterpart the one that lacks polish lacks glow lacks gleam lacks perfection. Imperfection, reality is. But you can put on a face you can put on a mask you can turn away You can hide. They laugh yet that is your true self your true framework the edges are sharp the construction haphazard the support falling apart. But, quick, reverse! Your face is so pretty so well-prepared so beautiful so shimmering with careful strokes Perfection. Oh, a picture? Please turn the camera away … That’s my bad side.
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tick tock tick tock the clock seems to slow down, to skip beats tick so does my heart tock the moments last forever tick as things begin to feel hazy tock I had done it tick I just wanted to end it tock the small round pills traveled so nicely down my throat tick all it took was a few too many tock and now time stops and I know I am close Release. but wait, time! come back! I am not ready but it is too late I am losing grip I am gone Awake. Lying in a hospital bed. tick tock tick tock. Stay close: The darkness looms And we hide in the night As fugitives from our own lives We flee. My father’s overalls, worn, worked, weathered, rest across a workbench, waiting to look new again. My father’s overalls, flaws patched inharmoniously, tears healed by stitches askew, frayed edges can’t be hidden. My father’s overalls, have worked too hard. The color is gone, the woven cotton worn through. My father’s overalls, will see no more dirt, will fade no more from the sun. They have finished their job. My father’s overalls, forever laying flat, stare at me with life, with a wisdom of endings. I am so very, very heavy As the weight of the ground pushes upon me I am oh, so very heavy As the weight of my past presses upon me. My tip remains sharp And my end is still round But the elements have sanded me down So my face is now thin. I was once purely vital For your ancestors needed to hunt to live Yet now I lay buried and useless Filled with guilt for the ones I’ve killed. I recall when I used to fly through the air Piercing my target amidst cries of pain I would bathe in my bloody success Until I was recovered to kill again. My glory days have long since passed But now with so much time to ponder And with all the years that have passed me by I wonder, did I ever have any glory at all? For though the killing was necessary I still shoulder the blood and stains Is it merely part of nature Or is killing ever justified? Who would have thought That the life of an arrowhead Would start so free and light But end buried as deeply as mine? |
writersSamuel C Archives
September 2014
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