Friday, March 28, 2014

a sharecropper gets ready for death, in iowa

master.  peace.               a master,
                                     in pieces.

the sad music of a sadder time,
                                           ceases.

blades of snow fall, between deadgrass creases.

the master, in peace, vacant staring,
from the scuffed oaken head
of his very
last bed.

any thoughts are splinters of driftwood,
flicking perusals
of a freedman's refuse: 

unpaid patriarchal dues, just one pair of fancy shoes.

eleven hawaiian shirts, hung at attention:
a crayon box of random hues.

a plastic crate of records sings the delta blues,
tattered clippings of another century's news:
brown vs. board of ed, richard trixson
wagging his fallacious finger, as the squashed insurgency
of '68 shakes its head.  mlk lays dead,
pouring blood onto the balcony, while
you never learned to read or write
more than the first two letters of your name.

to die here, so far from what is right,

amidst the cringe of winter cornstalks
and a sky as pale as rigor mortis,
revealing only sliver-smirks
of a sun that would not dare to scorch,
even in the height of august,

as the master, in peace,
stares vacant,

imagining a sky stained fuzzy
with cottonwisps, and cicadas
humming the spineless melody
                             
                     of a static history.