November
2006
In Papers
No dream,
No time for a short memory,
Time passes,
You may know where you’ve been,
But other people
Float face down in lakes for years
And you may remember
You read their lives this morning
In papers.
And me,
Well I scarcely pay attention
Over time,
Though I’ve righteous indignation
In the moment,
But I float downstream forever
Like any life, it’s
Only pin-points scattered
In papers.
In Khiam,
And I read it just this evening,
There was a bomb
Dropped by Israel in a fever,
In the crater
Were traces of uranium,
There was a war, some people died,
You may have read that
In papers.
Five years,
That should test the memory,
In Lebanon
(You may know where you’ve been)
But other people
In a plague of unknown cancers,
We may remember,
May be reminded
In papers.
3 Responses to “In Papers”
You got it just right, sienna, as far as I’m concerned, for what that’s worth (which I insist isn’t much, in my humility). Pleased I can communicate what I mean to sometimes, and not work it out of existence or into baton beatings. Good.
Remind me not to comment on my own whathaveyous, especially not in response to others. It’s most undignified. I don’t like words.
nice, quite honest. I like the obsevation of how introspective we all become, a good observation of the guilt that comes of navel gazing. or that’s what i got?