Now the time comes to look into the past-tunnels, the hours given and taken in school, the scuffles in coatrooms, foam leaps from his nostrils, now we come to the scum you take from the mouths of the dead, now we sit beside the dying, and hold their hands, there is hardly time for good-bye, the staff sergeant from North Carolina is dying–you hold his hand, he knows the mansions of the dead are empty, he has an empty place inside him, created one night when his parents came home drunk. He uses half his skin to cover it, as you try to protect a balloon from sharp objects. . . .
Artillery shells explode. Napalm canisters roll end over end. Eight hundred steel pellets fly through the vegetable walls. The six-hour old infant puts his fists instinctively to his eyes to keep out the light. But the room explodes, the children explode. Blood leaps on the vegetable walls.
Yes, I know, blood leaps on the walls... Don't cry at that. Do you cry at the wind pouring out of Canada? Do you cry at the reeds shaken at the edge of the marsh?
– The Teeth Mother Naked At Last. Robert Bly. I don't like the poem as a cohesive work, but it has passages which blow the doors off the room, and then some.
no subject
– The Teeth Mother Naked At Last. Robert Bly. I don't like the poem as a cohesive work, but it has passages which blow the doors off the room, and then some.