KindOf NaPoWriMo #7

April 13, 2008

“What the Man Sleeping in the Bus Stop Hut Told Me After Waking Up and Lighting a Cigarette”

It’s all fire, you ever noticed that?
There are fires burning deep in the earth
surviving on ancient seams and gas pockets,
burning since before his back was bent,
when his hair was the color of coal.
The fire started when a shaft collapsed
just after the war and ever minute since
it has burned, simmered, and smoked.
Through both his marriages and his son
crumpling in the hot rain,
friendly fire near Chu Lai,
through a bushel of presidents
not one worth a damn.
They can’t put the fire out
it’s spread too far, too deep.
I say it’s a cancer and he says
no. It’s a hemorrhoid, a boil on our ass.

It’s all fire, have you noticed that?
You get fired from your job
fired at on a street
fired up to get going.
Look at the boss’s wife
and you’re fired up,
kiss her and you’re fired,
but while you have her, you’re on fire, right?

An essential element, he says,
I’m thinking a primeval force
but I keep my mouth shut
and he tells me about the old cemetery
on a hill peppered with coal.
Sometimes smoke just boils up
from the ground, over here, over there.
He’s afraid to stay too long at a grave,
afraid to dawdle over that boiling earth
in case it vents and roasts him
right there where he kneels
over the dust, the ashes, and
the earth’s unpredictable wrath.

Tags: KindOfNaPoWriMo, NaPoWriMo