Classic and Contemporary Poetry
AMONG THE MILLION OF THINGS THAT HISTORY WILL FORGET, by STEVE SCAFIDI JR. First Line: Orange zinnias growing wild at the blunt base of the tower of babel Subject(s): History; Historians | ||||||||
Orange zinnias growing wild at the blunt base of the Tower of Babel. Bright-blue glass and the blown-out footing of a Polish cathedral. Three billy goats slaughtered by a farmer who is then slaughtered by a drunk regiment of soldiers. The white bones of those soldiers. The struggling body that is hanging from the rampart of a bridge. My brother who loves the great failure of words to signify things. Thomas, Thomas, Thomas, Thomas until sound unhinges and there is nothing. You tell me history is just fragments, pieces and ruins. You and I sitting together in a room of a house a hundred years old. One whiskey bottle half-empty on the broad oak table between us. The moted, white-hot light of a reading lamp on your long black hair. Quiet filling the house and Kathleen moving around some downstairs. Whiffs of tobacco wafting faintly from where you pace all night. My long sleep and the echoic narrative of dream's inordinate joy. An old storybook read to children beginning Once upon a time . . . . The ruins that become you. Ordinary things one devotes one's life to. http://www.wlu.edu/~shenano | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...THE BRITISH COUNTRYSIDE IN PICTURES by JAMES MCMICHAEL THE HISTORY OF MY LIFE by JOHN ASHBERY INITIAL CONDITIONS by MARVIN BELL THE DREAM SONGS: 290 by JOHN BERRYMAN THE EROTICS OF HISTORY by EAVAN BOLAND THEM AND US by LUCILLE CLIFTON ON LOOKING INTO GOLDING'S OVID by STEVE SCAFIDI JR. |
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