Sousa Two

deviant art by chatreuseboots


SOSUA TWO


I am looking back and fearing the peace
is too late. That he is already
filled up with death, and on his way.
The white spectacle is corrupted.
The man’s existence is all feeling.

The mind suffers
and cannot set the balance.
It is perhaps the last
Holiday of the Heart.
I struggle to live what my shadow
spills down my back.
Messes up what beauty has made.

I sweat and stammer before the mirror,
and all this is before I get up.
All this is just the night.
The early hours pin my arms
against the sheets.
I toss naked and think.

Something I remember from
the half-built houses in Illinois,
where I sometimes took my clothes off
in the morning, out alone
among the lath and plaster
of my youth.

My mother told me,
“You push at the darkness, that’s why
you make noise when you fall.”
Sometimes she’s not dead
and we are dancing.
She is young and strong, and there is
no trace of cruelty or selfishness.

I can see before me the divided self,
fighting for good and evil.
The black and white of the soul.
Calmness and turmoil creating
a forever cycle of energy,
nervous and lovely,
alternately making love.

Barry Tagrin

Posted over on Poet Island Press