LAMENTATIONS 

"City," he says, "you are destroying all my characters. You are pulling them from my mind to the streets and killing them with your secret imperatives."

The city says, "I will chase you with a broken stick."

Everything rushes away from the poet even as he leisurely rides the sullen old busses caked with winter mud and smelling inside of cold newspapers.

Enclaves wait patiently for the poet to enter. He enters with the knowledge that the enclave never experiences what he experiences, yet, the enclave experiences something that the poet never can.

Dreams are created in the flow of happy conversations, destroyed in the angry moment.

Every stop holds something tantalizing that swallows the poets imagination whole. The people have photographs to prove the veracity of their stories. There are people who look sad because they have met God and wonder why the greedy have not met God as well. Flower keepers flourish on the hot and blood-stained streets. Admirals who have won great Pacific victories sleep in the backyard of someone’s home, oblivious to the world.

The poet wonders with the peoples; you are sufficient unto yourselves, he wants to say, but dares not say anything.

© 2001 David Eide. All rights reserved.