""Talisman"
Early rain beyond the windows,
a hissing among old trees.
The man wakes toward a morning
that has not yet stained the sky
with shreds of clouds, or with blue.
Weary of old stories told
into the restless night, he rouses
behind bathroom, underwear, shirt,
trousers, notions of coffee and work,
soldiers under a pledge to endure.
Around him, common clots of disorder,
matters both despised and embraced,
from which no escape offers, no
formula assuages. He wears leg irons
past wakefullness, forced to breathe.
In and out. The prospect of the day
so familiar it lacks all contour,
or texture--too tall to see beyond,
to low to claim kinship with fate.
Complaint rattles, only a prayer wheel,
turning in the loop of old thoughts,
round and round, passing over the trouble
of real thought. Dreaming beckons, low siren.
Needing the talisman of the maker,
the sleeper would give himself into arms
of night, treading flight beyond bitter self-
contempt, winding down to Lethe. Still,
the body stirs, material insistence,
wakes, lifts the fragile chalice of words,
heeds the hiss of tires down a rainy street.
© 2006 Andrew Dufresne
Follow this link to comment
|
|
