Time to put off the hair-shirt. Time to wash tar clumps from the scalp—floss locust legs from between the teeth and gargle forcefully with gin until the last taste of old honey expires. One horizon bursts open (this is morning), the other drains all the blood from the end of the day. Where the action is, ping-ponging between the two wearing an acrobat’s suit. Self-flagellation so last-year; find someone else to despise.
Some TV show will spell everything out. In the meantime, stay out of wildernesses. In the meantime you live on a planet, a galactic dust-bunny collecting itself with each spin, perhaps wearing a bit thin at the temples, and the Minotaur can’t be kept chained forever, and what there is of gladness must not be squandered, O reckless heart.
©
is the author of Her Name is Juanita, These Metallic Days, and Some Odd Afternoon. These poems appear in Some Odd Afternoon, which is forthcoming from BlazeVOX.
Ashton is editor of the DMQ Review, and blogs at Poetry on a Stick.
We’ve published five more poems by Ashton: “Rapture,” “Donkeys also make good guard animals.,” “Same donkey, different blanket.,” “Christ,” and “Litany.”
