Poetry / June 2015 (Issue 28)


Taizōkai (Womb World)

by Joshua Burns

The scroll contained nothing new and you recognized every word.
Words did not police the eyes anymore than curtains did the wind.
The rain checked out by afternoon, the gods had to redeposit.
I lived underground where the gold was bright.

Hold that thought! How was docility a million dollar idea?
Hardened cranium imprisoned the invaders. A vegetative mind,
beta vulgaris, had less soul. So spoke Aristotle.
But it already did it, the will done.

Mother collected bronze lions, yet she despised the museum's
fetish objects. The dog was multimedia, had crystals for tits.
My sister's work was not included because the judge had lost
a loved one and made her selection a mourning.

My feelings were all that mattered; facts did not impede my sleep.
A Dickens's protagonist, I meant what I said and eventually regretted it.
My speech was free, so it lost value. She was a Beauty and I a Beast,
it ended soundlessly. There was always music if I listened.
 
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