Poem: "Hijack" by Roy Carnon
Reinforced in this still shell
we lost our reckoning
when all our watches stopped
the day before yesterday --
a thousand miles
a thousand years ago.
Bludgeoned, the overloaded sun
punched the same shadows
on the same runway
from the same guns,
exchanging a thin cigar of shade
for the torrid oven of contorted day
to scorch each posture of individual fear.
Lethargy assigns a legacy of mirages --
captors and captives share distorted air
and patched plastic emptiness of cups.
The dice are lost in no-mans land
between the cameras and the guns
searching horizons alive in purpose
of drooping flags allegiance to the sun.
Dark glasses cover darker eyes
blanked anonymous in sweat --
the freedom of a whimper snaps your nerve --
it's not the gun that kills
but the threat of that hot barrel
brands your cause.
Comments:
Poem: "The Last Friend" by Roy Carnon
We were younger when
the furnace night dripped molten lead
into our bowels.
Hot pavements did not discriminate
but I thought then you had compassion
of a sort.
Headstrong in spite
I raced you to the sky,
the north-grey sky,
where an orange sun
hung briefly on the day
and you were jailer of my dreams.
Headstrong you gripped my wing
over the long bay's sweaty night
when hot engines cut a cold swath in the sky
and cheated, swore to draw my friends
into your red debauch,
and over forecast years
drop them one by one,
cold in a bitter sea.
Piteous fingers draw love's thread
deep under holy ground --
I cannot forgive the long line of mounds:
I lost
the fight that never started.
Now only you and I are friends,
come now
guest at my cottage down the lane --
have you learned compassion yet --
well?
Comments:
Poem: "Deflection" by Roy Carnon
A boy
a ball
a wall
The angle if deflection . . . . .
does it apply to walls and balls
and kids?
Or only guns
and refracted Irish light
when boy
and ball
lie in a pool
not deep
but deep enough
of blood.
Comments:
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