To speak of his woe
posted Nov 13, 2007
A man of woe and small substance, a man of holy names and rattles on the wall, a man who wipes her bruised eyes on the stairs, a man of a crank-sent excuses and parrot-friends, a man of discoursed threats, of ticketbacks, a man who remembereths the old trinkets that his sweeties used to sit and gyrate on, a man who says “Give me all of your money and I’ll spend it,” a man who will slit my throat now, a man who would’ve done it eventually, a man unfortunate to say anything he means, a man only a woman can protect, a man now-thwarted, a man smart enough to start with supplication, a man who is not “Anonymous from Schenectady,” a man on the message boards, a man utterly unmysterious, mischaractered, happy to keep his own patterns, to concuss riddles in his skull, out-of-context, unbedeviled.
© 2007 Daniel Nester
God Save My Queen, God Save My Queen II, and The History of My World Tonight. His writing has appeared in The Best Creative Nonfiction, Third Rail: The Poetry of Rock and Roll, The Best American Poetry 2003, Open City, and elsewhere. He writes articles and reviews for Poets & Writers, Time Out New York, PoetryFoundation.org and Bookslut, edits the online journal Unpleasant Event Schedule, and maintains a website at danielnester.com.
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