 Phil
Boiarski's work has appeared in The Paris Review, The California
Quarterly, The Rocky Mountain Review, The Ohio Journal, The
Minnesota Review, The English Journal, and numerous other
publications. He has written and produced several plays.
Homage to
Mr. Cogito
He has drunk the driest water.
This should not matter but it does.
A raven's voice mocks our sorrow.
Words flow as if from a crow quill
writing on flesh, the spell
sinking deep beneath the surface.
Nothing is of consequence.
Every single word is freighted,
like a white sail on a black ocean.
Each breath descends inside a sigh.
Touchstones in a line - thoughts
in a long list of the unknowable.
Survival, the cynic's comfort,
like the dark heart of the root wood,
suspends trunk, limb, branch, leaves, sky.
If you got free
If you got free by any strange behavior,
you are aware how they fear anomalies.
You must not let them take your soul
and nail it to the post. It is yours alone.
Go quickly, while they are not recovered.
Do not stop to pick up your possessions.
They possess you. Go straight to the track
and hop an outbound train. No tickets.
Blend in. Find a small place where no one
cares much about who is in charge. Hide
among the willing. Never reveal your heart.
You may pity them, but nothing more.
I have learned to mask my true intentions.
Nothing goes without notice. The cameras,
if you look for them, are on all the buildings.
The images are always and everywhere caught.
The nail that stands up is hammered down.
The truth that is spoken can be choked out.
The facts that are written can be rewritten.
Nothing escapes notice. Nothing escapes.
Letter from Mars
You wonder why we left you to your simple god?
You believe in the one, but make war over which.
And what terrible war you make, war when fought
leaves the litter of a thousand mortals in a ditch.
Your warriors are children. Not men of gold, but clay.
Ten families prove they're flesh for every fighter fallen,
Where someone at a button, a thousand miles away,
launches lightning, which leaves a hole and the sullen
children waiting their turn in the ward. What sort of lout
would kill a warrior and the whole village he would rest in?
Where are the champions that rush to call each other out
into the field of battle to prove their mettle skin to skin?
Now, the sniper from a thousand yards would take his
head from its shoulders in a magic cloud of misty red.
No longer is it hand-to-hand and close enough to kiss.
Now, it is hard to find a whole man in the broken dead.
Once, walls held all the city's women and children,
sheltered the old and infirm, the sick and the lame.
Our heroes strode into battle to grapple as real men;
the life of the hero was no damned video game. |
