YOU CAN LIVE
7.1.06
Waiting for the sunrise
I walk down to the Hawthorne
bridge. I’ve decided. Today,
I’ll be the brother
who has died
and you can be the one
who fills his pockets
with rocks. You can throw
them at the parked cars
as you pass the open mouthed
mansions in Ladd’s addition
as their windows dart
and twitch with that last
burst of dreaming that comes
just before waking.
You can glare
at the joggers insulting
their dogs with their slow witted
voices repeating words
their dogs don’t understand,
you can stop on twelfth street
to watch the ten year old
kid who had gotten up
before his parents to come outside
and smash ants against the sidewalk
with his thumb. Today
you can try and lose the simple ease
of coming and going
that trails me like a starving stray.
2 responses so far ↓
1 Natalie // Jul 31, 2008 at 7:00 am
mac. just briefly for now– i love how i anticipated through the whole poem for the speaker to list the wonderful things that his brother (yr brother) is missing about life, and then it finally dawns on me that i’m not feeling sorry for the brother so much as the poor guy wandering around for some reason before sunrise with a world of emptiness on his shoulders. and then i thought we all live in fear that once we die, there will be nothing, just emptiness upon emptiness. but your poem shows that it’s really the living who must deal with “the void.” cool.
okay more technical notes to come when i get back from mexico!
n.
2 Natalie // Jul 31, 2008 at 7:01 am
mac. just briefly for now– i love how i anticipated through the whole poem for the speaker to list the wonderful things that his brother (yr brother) is missing about life, and then it finally dawns on me that i’m not feeling sorry for the brother so much as the poor guy wandering around for some reason before sunrise with a world of emptiness on his shoulders. and then i thought we all live in fear that once we die, there will be nothing, just emptiness upon emptiness. but your poem shows that it’s really the living who must deal with “the void.” cool.
okay more technical notes to come when i get back from mexico!
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