The Blankness of the Prosaic
“like an unfeeling stone” ~ Arthur Rimbaud while in Harar
What turns a teenage poet into stone
Without emotion? Maybe in the nest
He made there he had banished joy and groan.
Perhaps he planted rocks inside his chest
To make the desert blossom as a scar
Around the emptiness that love and Paul
Had left when poetry, abandoned far
Away in Europe, demanded a drawl
Of silence. Counting out the firearms, beans,
And profits turned to losses. Boring acts
Replaced the lyricism of the scenes
In absinthe boats alchemically made facts.
This blue-eyed leech sucked death from all around.
No bone began to make a righteous sound.