A Contemporary Requiem
Incense-misted eyes
throats baulked with pride,
scars reddened by droplets
a hand wiping spittle
from the breviary’s page;
Drought-mouthed elegies
to ribbons burdened
by weights of guilt,
gleaming handle farewells
accompanied by Borodin
to the warrior heart
swollen with longing,
marking time with
the limping clock;
Yearning yearning
for visions
wrought into maps,
iron-ore mountains
forged into Tanks
and nights of gasoline,
when the Sea
of Ages parted
and Vodka was Mussorgsky
in our heads.
Mirth & Laughter
Shallow shadows
demarcate
the steeper deeper
decline
of the fading falling
tears of years
dripping dropping
like gasoline
onto the pyres
of our own making;
Over there,
the dancing fools
and their pipers
whilst waiting to be paid
sold their souls for salt
in the impossible dark,
in the unreckoned nights,
consumed by their own
shallow shadows..
small-town
small-time dealer,
five dollar wraps
weekdays in the
shopping mall carpark
Saturdays behind
the Diamond Bar,
crumpled currency
changing hands,
churned in sweatpalmed
assignations between
college kids trailertrash
loners losers;
The 4-door Sedan appeared,
wound down its window
called him over,
spoke,
smalltime shrugged,
his smalltown demeanour
got mistaken
for an insult;
Deus Ex Machina,
they took what smalltime
wasn’t willing to give,
they left him
beside the shopping mall,
his crumpled life
changing hands
in the dust,
loners losers trailertrash
college kids interrupted
their smalltown assignations,
to watch as the Sedan
wound up its window
and
disappeared.
Louis Kasatkin is founder of Destiny Poets in the UK and Editorial Administrator at www.destinypoets.co.uk. For more than 20 years a Poet and Poetry promoter,Louis has been Poet-in-Residence at Wakefield Cathedral and workshop leader in schools and the wider local community.
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