100 Axioms, Maxims, and Lies
51-75
by Thomas Nance
#51
To ask
Why I write poems
Is like asking
Why I stare
Off at the sunset
And sometimes
Do not stop
Until the moon and stars
Become my only light.
#52
If you thank God
Before a meal,
Before a trip,
Before a marriage,
Before a birth,
Before a test,
Why not thank him
For a death?
#53
Thank God I'm not He.
After the forbidden fruit,
After the flood,
After the watching myself crucified,
After all the prayers
For a successful massacre,
I just think there'd be a good chance
I wouldn't have stayed around.
#54
Some years from now,
A mother will cradle her newborn,
Covered in a white lotioned
Softness and never once believe
Beyond the baby's beauty
That an Icon will walk the earth.
Few supplicants will pay this dear mother
Her rightful respect.
#55
No words tonight for the poet.
He sleeps in a world without dreams.
If he can wake just one more morning,
There'll be enough dew left
On the dying weeds to sparkle
Before his eyes close again.
#56
Some nights I'm so tired
I figure if I close my eyes
I just might die.
If I could only remember what
I said to Mr. Death
On those dreamless nights,
I might live longer than this poem.
#57
Nothing matters,
And everything is important.
If I'd stop forgetting,
Then my life
Would be complete;
I think.
#58
I know now what
The late, great poet meant
When he said,
"No poem can save a life.
It is lost even before
The first shot is fired.
So write a poem just to be."
#59
When a man knows what he'd say
To the woman who shares
That portfolio
Of her black and white nakedness,
Then he knows what he believes
To be art or artless.
#60
Brian was twenty-two. Eighteen months to live.
He smiled for he had learned not to
Show the pain. "Don't burn my body,"
He said. "Bury me in a pine box.
No frills, no lace. In time my body
Will rot and maybe a part of me will become
A flower. Ashes are just ashes. Nothing
Will grow." Brian stayed long enough
For a few people to remember his name.
#61
How long will my dogs bark
At the spirits which roam the night
And disappear as the porch light
Turns them into dust
Swirling around my dogs' paws?
#62
How long will I close my eyes
And not sleep?
How long will you open your eyes
And not see?
#63
If we bar the doors and window
So that the students can't escape,
Aren't we teaching them
That freedom and ignorance
Are one and the same?
#64
When we'd drunk enough
To sing our floating bodies
Empty of all sadness and regrets,
The sun came up too late
To frighten us back to work.
So we sang until the sun
Dried our throats
And weighted our bodies into
The shade where our childhood
Had been spent.
#65
We never reach the mountaintop.
The best we can hope for is to be
The highest before we fall.
#66
How many angels
Does it take
To save a soul?
#67
When a candle flickers
On the kitchen table
After the storm has
Blown the electricity out,
We get a glimpse
Of how small we are
Against the faint shadows
Cast tall on the walls.
#68
With his feet
Swollen, blistered, and cracked,
He could not see the same wonders
As I did from the air-conditioned bus.
#69
Everyone born is an artist.
Whether she creates
Or not depends on
If she chooses
To live.
#70
Everyone born is a demon.
Whether he destroys
Or not, depends on
If he chooses
To die.
#71
Her creaseless hand
Guides that needle through
The hooped fabric
Just as I remember
The hands of my wife doing
Before her eyes dulled
And one of her joys
Left her. How beautiful
My wife's needlework hangs
On the wall in my study.
#72
Lightning burst open the skies
Like momentary sunlight
Yet there is no warmth
When the night is all
There is to blanket you.
#73
Sometimes
I wish the asphalt might disappear
And with it my excuse for not walking
The birch lined, dirt path
Toward the setting sun.
#74
A wish to be
In a better time
Is a wish to have
Never been born.
#75
Couldn't we have danced one more time?
Maybe all I ever wanted
Was to feel your breasts flattened against mine,
To look into those green eyes,
To cup my hand in yours,
To laugh once more as just two people
With no one else in the world.