On Reading
Tomas Tranströmer in an Election Year
At first it's only
my eyes I feel
dripping down the
lines and pooling
somewhere west of
Stockholm, a blaze
of traffic over my
shoulder and still
this glassy puddle
underfoot, the blades
and engines
writhing again at the river
and my pen, too
now angry in the dense
rending noise. The
chimneys stark
and blowing hate
into the February sky
like a sheet
draped across a still face.
The music I hear
full of nothing. Lines
of it blown on the
air clear as gas, no less
than a signature
of sighs. Try to make sense
of it. These words
suddenly a creeping
thing. They wait
in the woods for more
like you. Their
faces burnt in shame, flush
cheeks daubed in
the only world we knew.
- Kristofer
Collins
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