Commons image
By S.J. Litherland
Where poetry hesitates at the door of being ninety,
the arc of desire, the drift of families, is it the time
for harsh truths, time at a premium for making up?
what’s jettisoned is story telling. Abstraction comes
with its brave banners, journeys are ending, the unreal
present has a tiny future and immense library of the past;
like living today on dotted islands in a great ocean.
The occasion the impulse of breakfast in the opening
of a new bookshop. I am now on the stretch of dying
but waking every morning. The stretch is arithmetic.
We join together in unexpected teacup excursions,
the books our locality, this is our leverage against wars
of men and war toys, islands of books in a sea of guns.
Words in archipelagos can save the world, keep talking.
Loud actions deafen. Nations. Families. It’s the same
sum, if you want to live, don’t threaten extermination.
