if i could see the flowers growing
as van gogh once saw flowers grow
then these poems would twist and writhe
upon the page in torment slow
splash and swirl with yellow passion,
hock and spit a madman’s green
vomit blues and blacks across the night
in a sky stark and obscene
but my eyes
are forced to faces
and catch the bend
of breaking backs
as black and bitter coal
comes crushing down
on souls in shacks
if i could hear the voice of war
come floating down throughout the years
as once made forever living
by beethoven’s dying ears
then these poems would ache with steel
come screeching down from scarlet sky
and tremble with the clatter
of the body carts piled high
but the gunfire
on blair mountain
is all i hear
above the din
the scream of mortality
from the mouths
of murdered men
if i could feel the gulf stream churning
‘neath the thin hull of my boat
catch the sun on marlin burning
as hemingway once wrote
then these poems would
clip and clatter with
precise, staccato prose
and when i’m old and fatter
i’d trip the trigger with my toes
but it’s the feel
of my forefather’s flesh
wearing my skin like a glove
that defines me
and reminds me
what my soul’s shroud
is made of
these poems are of my body,
the rhymes my rhyming limbs
the meter is the beating
of my blood through
ink stained veins
i chortle and i chuckle,
i grumble and i roar
i throw myself at heaven
and i fall back on the floor
i have nothing left
of charming words
or pretty paint and
pleasing sound
nothing but the ghosts
of these dark hills
who await me
in the ground
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