From the poet’s dictionary
noun \ˈpis-tən\
a sound like a fist, like rain,
like fat drops on hardpan,
like a screen door flapping,
like gasoiline on skin,
like burning sand,
like the smell of coal ash
at ten below zero,
like a stain in the heart
that cannot be removed,
like every slamming, crushing,
fierce and mortal thing
that cannot be undone,
except by love.
See also grief.
That time was dark
A world of silhouettes, cigarette smoke,
A place where light faltered,
Intimidated, burdened
With the smell of whiskey,
The taste of luxurious defeat
Swilled like fine wine gone sour.
The wind blows tough at night
When only fear lights the hollows
Of something like despair.
So here we are, the last of us,
Swizzle-eyed and weary,
Surviving escapees from
What can only be recalled dimly.
I look in the mirror and ask,
Was that really you?
In the mirror
Autumn falls
And another September
Thus bends the day
toward nightfall
unbidden, unrelinquished
without reference or meaning
So goes another lost anthem
drifting off to bedlam
from the sheer friction of time
Whatever hounds or tracks our lives
however keen, persistent,
(such wisps as bind us to our fate)
Yet stronger than all
our pining flings the day gone
And we,
too full of surrendering
to simply release
While the wick burns lower
the dwindle-dream
I heard of a shaman
Who learned a peyote song
From the generator of his car
On the way to the ceremony
At which he sang full throated
The lesson of the Burning Way
exiles child 