Matthew Bass
Poetry On A Bus: March 8th 2012 Repeated
Why do you revile!
this book of poetry
I read?
Why do your stubby
fingers shake! with
anger?
Why does your upper lip quiver?
as your blood pressure
rises! Spatially imprisoned,
conditioned to beleive
beauty is useless and unproductive.
Can´t you understand! Your
ugliness is as beautiful as
this book of poetry I read
you so revile.
I am, you are
citizens of a black mass
on Gray´s gray line
from infinity to infinity
Like Bus Stops on the circular
getting on at one stop
getting off at another,
while the bus travels on
full of Abuelas yelling:
Puerta! Puerta! Puerta!
when the driver refuses
to move slow enough
for their bones.
History has gotten over you.
The next generation has gotten over you.
Someday, I will get over you.
But, will you one day get over you.
Idolatry comes in subtle forms
and consumerism is not the engine,
but you, you alone, are stupid enough
to believe the Bus Stops begin and end
with tri-corner mythology.
I was once your Marine-Hero
burning, raping, pillaging,
killing; feeding the grass
the blood that makes it grow.
Carried those stereotypes
proudly upon my chest
above and left of my heart
you lap up like a dog
in those thoughtless
box-movie theaters.
Like all good Marines I
called myself a christian,
though I probably wasn´t.
And all good christians
called me christian
because
a scourge called Islam was upon us,
burning, raping, pillaging
killing; not so different
from us.
And God would forgive me
for the seventeen-year old asian Girls
I wore through like second-hand clothes,
though they fall in love and feel
their hearts break much like us.
I could drink a case of beer, run
up recon ridge then tell you to
"Shut The Fuck" with the best,
but
tonight I´d rather drink tea
and read the book of poetry
you so revile! The endless
rounds of cheap beer become
harder to recover from the
closer I push thirty, and
Wednesday´s are for Yoga.
You will always be welcome
on my property, after all
we are a society and communism
has been dead for twenty years.
I´ve seen it´s obituary!
I´ve seen it´s headstone!
I´ve seen it´s occupied
burial plot. You can stop
and take a punjabi breath
alone, together, indifferent
with one another on the same gray line.
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