Which Yet Survive
The landscape fades, people with it.
The process isn’t painful: it’s more
the way one forgets friends,
who die after many decades,
one hopes painlessly, wherever –
except in this case we are each the friend.
That large part of society
which tends towards narcissism can’t
accept this, and after widespread mayhem
only some peaceful millions are left to die.
We’re given to understand that something
like a memorial will be allowed
in the flat finite warehouse universe.
Ethnicities demand proud figures.
Religions vote predictably. A surprising
number of people want statues of
their dogs. One prof suggests Anubis;
somebody in the arts, a Giacometti.
The process isn’t painful: it’s more
the way one forgets friends,
who die after many decades,
one hopes painlessly, wherever –
except in this case we are each the friend.
That large part of society
which tends towards narcissism can’t
accept this, and after widespread mayhem
only some peaceful millions are left to die.
We’re given to understand that something
like a memorial will be allowed
in the flat finite warehouse universe.
Ethnicities demand proud figures.
Religions vote predictably. A surprising
number of people want statues of
their dogs. One prof suggests Anubis;
somebody in the arts, a Giacometti.
Dream After War Film
All the way down the tunnel we slip
on bones and broken glass and stuff
whose smell comments
darkly on the idea of life. And I and
I’m sure many of us
link present fears – the shouts
and engine noises of pursuit,
bullets in backs, betrayal –
with other pains: loss, hunger,
years of hideous air.
So that for me and I’m sure many
the sole relief is crazy questioning:
can one be a drama queen
where the drama is fatal?
Can taste live when morality dies?
We reach the end of the tunnel.
Remembering (if one has forgotten)
that here at last there will be safety,
being treated like human beings, warmth,
clean water, or grinning killers.
Inability to transcend
this divergence solemnizes
our last steps.
Kind uniforms help us into light.
“A new experience,” says a soft-eyed nurse.
“No,” I announce. “Our first experience.”
on bones and broken glass and stuff
whose smell comments
darkly on the idea of life. And I and
I’m sure many of us
link present fears – the shouts
and engine noises of pursuit,
bullets in backs, betrayal –
with other pains: loss, hunger,
years of hideous air.
So that for me and I’m sure many
the sole relief is crazy questioning:
can one be a drama queen
where the drama is fatal?
Can taste live when morality dies?
We reach the end of the tunnel.
Remembering (if one has forgotten)
that here at last there will be safety,
being treated like human beings, warmth,
clean water, or grinning killers.
Inability to transcend
this divergence solemnizes
our last steps.
Kind uniforms help us into light.
“A new experience,” says a soft-eyed nurse.
“No,” I announce. “Our first experience.”
|
Author of two book-length narrative poems: The Adventure and Happiness (both Story Line Press; the former reissued 2022 by Red Hen Press), and four collections of shorter poems: A Poverty of Words, (Prolific Press, 2015), Landscape with Mutant (Smokestack Books, UK, 2018), The Beautiful Losses (Better Than Starbucks Books, 2023), and The Liberator (Survision Books, 2024). Pollack has appeared in Poetry Salzburg Review, The Fish Anthology (Ireland), Magma (UK), Bateau, Fulcrum, Chiron Review, Chicago Quarterly Review, etc. Online, poems have appeared in Big Bridge, Hamilton Stone Review, BlazeVox, The New Hampshire Review, Mudlark, Rat’s Ass Review, Faircloth Review, Triggerfish, etc. www.frederickpollack.com.
|
