Detachments – 1 & 2 by Mark Prisco
1. Cut
Bless my suffering
cut short, shorn
like lawn on long
summer days.
Tedious heaven.
These hours of suffering
are swathed
by an eternity
of days:
was, will be.
Bliss.
There’s no death
but how to tell it?
Last night was all one to me –
Whitman off his tree
gathering daisies
from the grave, I lay
there
with the voices, my own
mostly, whispering
the mind, random
happenings like
nothing I know;
a Padre Nostro;
word for word,
a Michelangelo;
no reason, you know.
I got up at 1 o’clock,
cut 3 lines on my arm,
and went to work.
2 desert, sea
One day I quit.
I’m sick of bodily demands –
having to eat
and go to the toilet.
The drudge of the supermarket
on a Thursday
and the radio
blows, always
the hum-drum tins
of beans on toast.
I’m not cynical.
Government is.
Advertising, radio:
the real world. The way our lives
are organized. I’m nothing
now,
but myself – the real me.
One day I quit
for the desert, sea,
wood; live long
for the mountains and the trees;
love, and soft
pillows, under one
a gun. Rain sun
rustic wheels,
animals; a boy
and girl. I’m not cynical.
Government is.
The real world.
May 2015