1.
unseen somewhere sirens
sing fire in the cold night
and i answer them
like a phone
only to find lights pinning
red over white
snow as nightdark waves
of water break
on the burning houseprow
and me, avoiding
the bone bare trees between
curb and sidewalk
until slam!into
my car because i can't
quit shivering and fish-
tail to you (again) to hold
me, sliding through the stop signs
2.
guardrail broken clean through,
sharktoothed mouth of jagged metal, or
a lily's trembling jaw; but mostly
(light blooming in darkness
drawing the soul adrift,
flesh boxed in dropped in
the night after night after)
stairs we cannot climb
leading only to false rooms
beyond this crystal curtain
(the
spirit spirals, twists and rises
into the tube
of light)
lights off. sit calm! sit calm!
begin our slow glissade into the tears
of heaven where we d(are not)rown
3.
the sublurb
on the photo showing cornfields
read
'banker green and farmer brown
strike a deal, will plant a town'
or something like that
news to starve my heart but nothing new
growing rows of houses fenced in by concrete malls
irrigated by steady streams of cars trucks minivans
and news would be the mutant honeybee
or someone like that
who these vinyl weeds so irritate
they evolve fresh ways to pollinate
dead
dry pods holding dormant soulseeds,
the suburb
4.
souljars
one
little two
little three
little
souljars
good egg bad egg scrambled egg toast
onward listen souljars marching off to war |
humpty dumpty sat on a wall |
a tisket a tasket the earth is a basket
we all fall we all fall we all fall
and all the eggs
and all the eggs
and all the king's horses
and all the king's men
Copyright © 2001 Charles Coleman Finlay
Charles Coleman Finlay's poems have appeared in The Bitter Oleander, CrossConnect, Rattle, and elsewhere. He has two short stories forthcoming in Fantasy & Science Fiction. Visit his Web site to read more about and by him.