100 Axioms, Maxims, and Lies
26-50
by Thomas Nance
# 26
Sirens haunt the night streets,
While alleyways shelter
Our sons and daughters
As we dead-bolt doors,
Bar our windows and
Sit at opposite ends
Of our houses.
# 27
Tonight, when you sleep,
You will not dream of me
Nor I of you.
Thank you just the same
For your hand across mine,
For your green eyes
And your pale skin.
Now I can sleep
Without dreams
# 28
Our streets will at last be safe
When all the children
Can go home and laugh.
# 29
Our students sit in rows
While paper is tossed about the room,
Markers flash across the walls,
Insults are hurled in front of closed fists,
Fathers' semen dries on daughters' panties,
Junkies nod after their fixes,
Bellies swell with air and hunger,
Gun barrels are swallowed and explode.
The notes on the ground
Can't be read for all the blood.
# 30
If God blesses all, what happened to the
sunburned
Man awakened too early from the last drunk?
Why does he wait behind the fence at Denny's
For the next car with the next person
With a little help into the sunburned man's pockets
Emptied of everything except a shit covered bandanna,
A rusted, pocket knife, and a bit of hope?
# 31
Is my freedom only a long walk unafraid
Down unlit streets on moonless nights,
Or is it reading to my children from the book
I wrote by the light of burning crosses,
Or is it nothing more than a whispered promise
To a starving man too delirious to remember
What food was for?
#32
Tonight, you last night lover,
Dry your sweat with mine.
Rest your head on my chest
And dream.
I will not wake you
Nor will I open the blinds
And let that afternoon light in.
If you changed your mind,
I'll come back and dream
With you, and if you don't,
I'll empty the cigarettes
From this pack.
Every one smoked, a remembrance
Of you.
#33
It must be worth a wrinkle
Or two to close my eyes
To the morning sun
Warming my face while
Everyone else I know
Is rushing off to work.
# 34
The ditch where Wes and I
Tossed our cigarette butts into
On our way home from school
Has been covered up
For fear that a child might drown.
Sometimes I think there is more of a fear
Of what the children might dream
As the water rushes over the weir.
#35
One day I'll bury
Both my mother and my father.
Will they weep for me?
#36
Our former president died today.
All I could do was turn the soil
With a shovel, sow the lawn seed
By hand, and hope the robins don't drop
Too many weeds when they flap
In the puddles where the soil
Is too hard to drain.
#37
Outside the church after Sunday school,
My boys look so small under the bell tower.
For whom do the bells toil
Before each service?
For the parishioners sitting between empty rows,
For me walking my boys back home,
Or for others too far away to hear?
#38
The secret of being a successful leader
Is simply finding good followers.
#39
Why is it
Things can't be as if it were long ago
In a black and white world
Where kisses where soft, curses never heard,
Skin unblemished, and love always pure?
# 40
Whenever I sing, you are with me,
And even though you can't hear my voice
When the notes are pure and sweet,
There is no one else in my mind but you.
# 41
No flag will be draped
Over my coffin nor folded
Into a triangle and kept
As a remembrance of me.
Still, there are ceremonies
To perform: graying of hair,
Dimming of eyes,
Shortening of days,
Aging of children,
And wondering daily
Why you stay with me,
My love.
#42
I am your teacher today.
Tomorrow you'll leave
And if I succeed,
You'll never need me again,
And in that separation,
We'll both become more human.
#43
First they told us how long our hair should
grow,
What clothes we must wear, and what seeds to sow.
They taught us all a mandatory gaze,
A steel straight back, and some heart felt praise.
Then they told us what god that we must see.
Yes, we must thank them for keeping us free.
#44
All mothers were once only lovers.
Now their hearts beat in rhythm
With their children's.
Mothers' lips part to give solace,
Advice or strength. And instead
Of the lover's passion calmed only
In naked promises or self-serving sights,
A mother's passion lives past her own
Existence and into the generations to come.
#45
"I hope we only die once.
It's all too boring,"
The genius physicist said
The day before his last great breath
Left his brain without hope
Of another thought
And the questions he never cared about,
"Why am I here?"
Was answered for him
Whether he wanted to know or not.
#46
How can she without a name
Be born dead when she lived
Long enough to look so beautiful?
Do we only name those
Who breath outside the womb
Or should we mourn
The blades of grass
Crushed under the dry,
Hard earth?
#47
We found her dead,
Crumpled over the stairs
Before the boarded-up diner.
Not one of us stopped
To pull her eyelids down
Nor even shake our head
As we hurried passed her body
To join her.
#48
The small stream rushed down
The towering wall of earth
Held back with stones and wire,
And we all walked by as if
The water had no life,
And the earth was as stable
As the stars on an overcast night.
#49
On the wall in my room
Hangs the crucifix
My mother gave me.
Even though I never pray,
I learn much from
That icon every day.
So strong is the power
My mother was blessed with.
#50
I've heard all the talk
Of nothing being important,
Of nothing being the answer,
Of nothing being the reason.
I'm sorry that none of these philosophers
And critics have ever kissed you
On a day like today
When the white blossoms
Roar into bloom before
The towering, verdant foothills