Absalom

Absalom


He had to go away.
Besides, inside every large fir
hides a pot of gold.
A poet needs money.
Will work where he can,
when he has to,
if they will let him.

Absalom was lured up river.
Beyond his father’s reach.
Beyond the comfort
of his books and computer.
Beyond the housing tracks.
Leaping hurdles of old forest
camps, felled trees, snags
and mesquite, to where
chaos flourished
in the fury of long toothed saws
and screaming winches.

Yesterday, God came calling
for a young backwoodsman.
Absalom might have had a prayer
but not the time to say it
as a steel cable lashed
through his red neck.
His head flew into the air
bouncing over my boots.

That these eyes still focus
as they travel up the sides
of my tin cup, stopping
where the whiskey begins
to spill, should come
as no surprise.

If words can mean, these eyes
can curse, cry, run in cold weather,
or tear when throat gags
from shock and fire’s smoke.
I sit here drinking, staring down
at my bloody boots, watching
the anger in me rise, not that life
dishes up such crap on a silver platter,
but that we are forced to eat it
even though we choke.


Scott Malby

Posted over on Hawkwind Creations