The poetics of madness

 

Not a Grave Poem

 

Keep from me the livid quiver of uncertain poems, the poetics of madness

   their bridgewalking words

 

Not a grave poem, or set of thoughts on struggle

   with another metaphor of death

 

I cannot channel one more sad line, mine others’ pain

   whose eyes sink low on the head

 

Nor can I gouge out my own pain, summoning illusions of equanimity

   in the crying room of childhood

 

Not dismay, disgust, depression or doom, nor any other D word

   scrawled into the history of gall

Spare me, screen, from the livid quiver of uncertain poems, the poetics of madness

   their bridgewalking words

 

Mark my word. A thin slice of now--limitedly aware of itself--tunnels

   straight to its scarce root

Dear woman on the bridge

Dear Woman Wearing Orange on the Franklin Avenue Bridge

Today, we could not cross back over

The Franklin Avenue Bridge, the flashing lights

Suggested an accident

It’s about four seconds down to the Mississippi

Could a car have blown through the rail?

Ask a young Somali guy watching from a bench

He points it out, and all you see

Where the perfect arc of strength thins at the apex

Is her orange blouse

A homeless man’s arms flail up to the heavens

Such things on a Sunday afternoon seem inconsequential

Until you see her form

And you pedal southeast to the Lake Street Bridge

Averting your eyes as you cross

The mighty river

Dear woman wearing orange,

Look around you, see us on the banks, rooting

And climb back over