Trash for The Flames
for Pablo Picasso

how annoying when
a book you want to read
with pictures you’ve come to love
because of dampness, rot
or because wet in rain
is now a book of pages you cannot turn

instead, its pages, stuck together
unable to turn them, you peel them,
rip them, tear them, destroy even more,
book you once loved

unable to access what was readily available,
so accessible

what of when the book in question
is life itself, a relationship gone wrong,
gone sour, like food, warm, palatable,
gone cold

nothing left to do but to rake it out

could have it back eventually
with hogs, huge, grunting,
in your back yard to rake it to
to take it to


© Obediah Michael smith, 2007
1:38 p.m. 22/08/07