Sunday, October 24, 2010

Heaven #6

Once upon a time there was
Once upon a time there was a castle by the
   
    *  *  *

Once upon a time there was a castle by the sea & a percolator bubbling on a faded taupe Formica counter
   
    *  *  *
   
the sand is just so much white sugar
   
    *  *  *
   
this unheimlich clock, this black-ice breaking
   
    *  *  *

Max whispers sharps, she whispers dry-ice stars
   
    *  *  *

The real world had had its day, it ended in a fit of rain & blackbirds
   
    *  *  *

A patch of witchgrass
   
    *  *  *
   
A patch of witchgrass gone to seed in the

    *  *  *

A patch of witchgrass gone to seed in the asphalt & the asphalt looks a little bit like a cracked mirror
   
    *  *  *
   
Max in a black dress in the fractured light
   
    *  *  *
   
Once upon a time there was
   
    *  *  *

Once upon a time there was a german sanatorium swarming with black tubercular sport coats, a novel swarming with purple finches
   
    *  *  *
   
free at last from the wages of sin, Max gets into her car
   
    *  *  *
   
This is the street where we danced last Wednesday—have the streetlights vanished so completely
   
    *  *  *

there’s no sunset there’s only the wet wet heaven

    *  *  *

a last chance to float on wide band radio waves

    *  *  *

Once upon a time there was
   
Jack Hayes
© 2010

2 comments:

Totalfeckineejit said...

I love this John,love it.

Unknown said...

Thanks, TFE! I like the Heaven sequence a lot myself.