FOUR FEATHERS PRESS ONLINE EDITION: STILL NIGHT Poets and artists published in Four Feathers Press Online Edition: Still Night are now published online and invited to read at the Saturday Afternoon Poetry Zoom meeting on Saturday, October 26th between 3 and 5 pm PST.

Friday, October 18, 2024

Rob Tannahill

"The Stoic"


there’s a rose blanket

on my bed

a gift given to me

that last night on the street

dude bade me buena suerte

and walked away

funny thing, me

kicked off the Greyhound

for extreme vomiting

in the moving bathroom

and I never argued

just walked away

been to jail enough

16-inch blocks of beige painted stone

so thick you can peel off the stuff

bunkie wrote Silvers on the wall

Rooster wrote Lost Dog

and I felt God hold me

in the still night

in the pathos

in the foresight

we were far gone on

Effexor and Buspar

in the shakedown

final head count

lost four years of life

that's over

I haven't had a soup in years

my apartment on Front Street is

fireworks and 

jumping demons

dreaming of

a place

where I’m finally okay

this desk is IKEA

putting it together was a breeze

plastic hands hold my water bottle

orgone pyramid for a pretty shape

got my grandmother’s old lamp

her mirror

still hangs on the wall behind me

and acted, very briefly

as an interdimensional portal

I did

however

wash the glass of the sun gate

and run the obligatory

apo pantos kakodaimonos

and smoke bundles of sage

put my own face to the mirror 

and screamed change!

you ever do that?

hold yourself hostage 

and say something like

I’ll smash your ass if you don’t GROW UP

now look at me

chalked up a new chance at the horse race

a spirit scores for the faithless tonight

if I had a soul, bet he got it

with blood and archaic lettering

egregore gibberish divine

a chance that I had

turned around and had me

and we tried our luck on each other

not classically, though—

long time ago, that was such a long time ago

now this new age

view from above business I got on

takes a bit longer to get the check

but it’s all about sustainability

and the angels pay more

as long as I'm

up at dawn to watch the sunrise

up at dawn to smile

up at dawn to say, 

"Now this--yes this. This is what I'm made for."


No comments:

Post a Comment

R A Ruadh

The night draws nigh The night draws nigh when the veil between worlds reveals the other side The night draws nigh sunset walking closer to ...