Saturday, April 11, 2015

NaPoWriMo - day eleven


filling spaces

this is how you will find me
angry. full of questions,
or maybe answers.

i’m tired of filling my mouth
with mumbling and mysteries,
tired of filling the space
between us with words spilling
onto our chests, clattering
onto the floor
crushed underfoot
as we walk around
in circles, a dance
we practise with edges
sharpened with practiced
intent of parry and thrust,
the hard glint
of steeled resolve.

this is how you refuse
my request, how
bitterness becomes a home.

Night Confession by Anne Carson - NPM11

Priest, I am haunted, it's night in the city
my soul is a box of mortal black sins,
horrible sadness rains onto the sidewalk
and no one comes along.

All is quiet, all is asleep, vast solitude
sickens itself on a gasp of old mansions.
Priest, I am haunted, it's night in the city
my soul is a box of mortal black sins.

In the park in winter in a nasty wind,
comes Lucifer jeering at my broken heart,
mad heart! Look at the suicide grinding his blade,
look there's a good calm hanging tree --

Priest, pray for me, it's night in the city!


Carson, Anne. "Night Confession" Modern Canadian Poets. Jones, Evan and Todd Swift, eds. Manchester: Carcanet Press Limited, 2010. 190.