All armies are the same
Publicity is fame
Artillery makes the same old noise
Valor is an attribute of boys
Old soldiers all have tired eyes
All soldiers hear the same old lies
Dead bodies always have drawn flies

'AHHHHH, MAKE ME A CUP OF TEA!"

Here, in this living room
my mother lies

in her coffin.

Death, the uninvited guest
makes itself at home.

I sit beside her
as if in a play

not knowing
the next line

is mine...

In the cast list
I am her first

boy
I am

unable to cry
now

unable to believe
the realness

of this
reality.

Memory is unable
to hold her

she spills from my mind
like water

held in the hands.


My mind cuts
a cross section

through time

so that she is
here

in all her living
guises

little girl...young woman
mother.

I see her
as all she forever is

can ever be. . .

Tears drop
upon her

face
tears that can't

stop
as if now

she cries
for me.

I wipe my tears
from her face.

"Don't cry..."
I whisper into her hair

"I'll make you a cup of tea."

The clock
refuses to chime.

There is no time
left.

Some came in chains
Unrepentant but tired.
Too tired but to stumble.
Thinking and hating were finished
Thinking and fighting were finished
Retreating and hoping were finished.
Cures thus a long campaign,
Making death easy.

Whispers of heavenly death, murmur’d I hear;
Labial gossip of night—sibilant chorals;
Footsteps gently ascending—mystical breezes, wafted soft and low;
Ripples of unseen rivers—tides of a current, flowing, forever flowing;
(Or is it the plashing of tears? the measureless waters of human tears?)

I see, just see, skyward, great cloud-masses;
Mournfully, slowly they roll, silently swelling and mixing;
With, at times, a half-dimm’d, sadden’d, far-off star,
Appearing and disappearing.

(Some parturition, rather—some solemn, immortal birth:
On the frontiers, to eyes impenetrable,
Some Soul is passing over.)

Every day is
the same road, same lines,
same lights, same dents on the
c r o s s r o a d s .

Flickering lights of
s t o p    &    g o

Sitting on the back of a cab,
The beeping sounds start to sink in. . .

S    l   o   w   l    y
I close my eyes, thinking :

"  Where the **** should I go?  
If somewhere the rivers don't flow,
W o u l d   I    b e   a l o n e ?  **"