| Dan Sicoli USA da my father painted everything brown everything my father with a 4” brush painted the goddamn world barnstable brown garage doors our rusty old van sidewalks the backyard picnic table the backyard the window trim my bicycle the kitchen floor the soles of my mother’s feet one of the clothesline poles my shoelaces the edges of the blades of the ceiling fan the steel bearings of a strange machine rotting in the dampness of the wine cellar the lint in my best friend’s belly button the angel fish in the fish tank the keys on my uncle ernie’s accordion and the now-broken strap that used to hold my uncle’s accordion across my uncle’s chest the bottoms of all the coffee cups in our house and our neighbor’s house the fence the sign that says for sale in the bar behind our house the three canadian 20s ma stuffed in an envelope and tapped behind her vanity mirror he painted tv screens and toothbrushes and trees at the edge of the horizon my father only drank on christmas eve i only saw him drunk once it was on halloween during the ’67 world series was the only time i ever saw my father drunk he would take a bit of wine on his anniversary it was the only time i ever saw him drink and now i breathe my father’s soul forgive me now i watch it rise i breathed it in as it rose forgive me now it rose and i let it go and in flight it did not fall forgive me forgive me not it rose it rose it: rose (END) i would run i would run linda
these skinny legs in flight
but not in fear of you
or your smoky dank parlor past
nor the mutated double helix
hanging like a fly strip
corkscrewing your future into oblivion
i run from fear
of what i would do
the spilled wax
physical evidence
long hard and cold
to think i once slept
in the grotto of
your feral heart
to think i once believed
instead you offered
sanctuary
like a crack-sniffing pale ghost
warring on the rain-soaked pavement of streets
where factories failed
this is the flaw
this
the life sentence
(END) © All Copyright, 2000, Dan
Sicoli. |