Wednesday, February 19, 2020

day ONE THOUSAND ONE HUNDRED and TWENTY SEVEN


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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