Yellow anaglypta sky,
Mulchy leaves like mirrors;
Yellows, pinkish too alight,
Grounded sky implied
And downward falling rivers,
Pre-crepuscular,
What was their objective, stripped?
To end here, nearer, those souls
With tanks trapped in sand,
Engines choked, gears stuck,
What was to be delivered
For all we held dear?
Are we this bored with ourselves
Because we did not go to war?
Dawn solo,
Lonely blackbird,
Forbidden sky,
Foreboding and with an egg
Frying on a bonnet in the middle,
Upside down,
Yellow clouds
So close to the surface
I do not know if we fell out.
Rain, thick and heavy as
Lovers’ heartbeats;
You were to go swimming
With your uncle
Who has not changed since
He was last seen way back when,
And which would not ever happen
In this duality, neither yours nor mine.
He took a bicycle without asking,
The one I cannot ride on,
Knowing full well the municipal pool
Is in that part of town
With thefts in spate.
I woke on a motel bed in Yellowknife,
No duvet, no sheets,
The side of my head was swollen,
A fearful headache,
Empty whiskey glass beside
A faulty bedside lamp
Which began to reach into my mind
And my only thought
As I heard their sex through
A wall behind my head, was this,
Of how war may well be madness,
But families, often, more so.
I used the toilet, sipped a drink
That was not there,
Then climbed naked back
Into that cold, uncovered bed.
Wow, big tone shift from souls to choked (nicely done!), but the most powerful line to me (personally resonating maybe), the subtly mentioned “But families, often, more so.”
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Also, and this is entirely me being me… I know Yellowknife as the Canadian town, but I cannot help associating, especially with your poem, yellow in a sense of cowardice and knife in a sense of backstabbing. But then I looked it up and found “built on gold and now sustained by diamonds;” oh the metaphoric places I can take that! Fascinating work, dear Nick. As always. Your voice is not even one in a million; there is no one like you.
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