Andrew Foreman | + Follow Poet |
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Tears Dry With the Vision

someone once said, when your child is born,
that’s when you start dying,

generations ahead,
stand up to those left behind,

but I, in the strangeness,
of the complex and now,

pass by the calls of young voices,
wordless sounds from any far town,

heat from bleached concrete,
make me think of other sun beaten streets,

so far away under foreign suns,
and harsh foreign tongues,

where currency is hot brass,
brokered lives cordite sown,

so I wander through days,
like pushing through wet cotton,

so many voices surround me,
thrumming hives behind plaster,

as a time I walked among statues,
mouthing words, sounds to no one,

all meaning nothing,
but startled at a shifting coldness,

passing wraith, assaulting vision,
a father standing over a young girl, enraged,

denied brideprice by chance of shrapnel,
mournful wail silent in her eyes, 

unwanted now, dark eyed rubbish of the street, 
discarded like village effluent,

pulling back from that clutch,
drawn away like a fade,

tears dry with the vision,
loss turned off like a tap,

shaking off this low weight, 
burden like a damp greatcoat,

I know armor and steel make no matter as then,
power is not so easily magazine fed,

so what did it matter in lost time in that sun,
when daily I watched Eden swallow her young?

Copyright © Andrew Foreman | Year Posted 2016

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