Poem: Nameless Wife On the Flood

Originally published in that super-cool journal of literature & art, Viral Cat.

You can read it here, if you wish, between the pastel crayon sketches Autumn III and Autumn IV by Lorna Ritz (there are also some nifty screenplays in this issue):


Why is she nameless?


Here's hoping we don't go into Syria,


Owl



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Nameless Wife On The Flood

passels come and go
like inconsolable octopi.
no hope in their flourishes,
the muck on the flails of their grasps,

just bathos of the most selfish kind.

they exuviate and expiate,
but the ears of stone
on the people in the skyscrapers dare not believe,

until the lies
in their workaday blood panic,
and their stomachs
forget the license agreement
in the bargain for bread.

rain falls as thick
as a graveyard of listing masts,
spurs apologies from bewildered
and unexpected friends.

there are no poets
to decipher the sad babbling.
no Bird Women left,
unpinioned of passion
and honest enough to jump.

slow in the deluge,
masks of soggy throngs
tear to suds and dribble away.

god looks down,
as relieved as the clouds,
and sees nothing there.


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