Stagnant

poem

Iris Shaw, October 2023

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Night moves up against the window,

Eyes dull, and hours pass

Quiet in the artificial light.

The world’s before you on the screen

But nothing speaks —

Just the keen

Of devices counting down

The numbers till their arbitrary end

And then you’ll beg and plead to make amends

And perhaps their metal minds will condescend

To live another day,

Never mind that then.

So night crawls on into the morning

Heralded by sullen headache warning

But the silence is complete,

Insipid couplets of deceit

And the battered muse cries

Why can’t you be more honest

In your lies?

They are a world on which the glass is seldom lifted

Where between the dusty streets is daily drifted

The dreck of typed and retyped villanelles

And in this world is nothing left to sell.

It’s just as well;

Here’s morning, pain, and Advils,

Bank statements and the angels

Crowding thick between the ground and winter sky:

Something dies,

Lies rotting at your hand

And is reborn,

Before you ever

Could gather and discard the time to mourn.

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