Modern Ruins
for Tisca Pratt

minutes together, spoilt
separated
music, how sick
how loud on buses

on a bus, she and I on it
coming between us
like a wedge
take us apart
and she let it
we let it

pick such a bus
one she should not have
with what we had left
to share, to savor

came to or went to
or got to the edge
studying Theatre
learning to be actor

in Movement classes
a limit since
what I could tolerate
what it takes
to be pushed over

don't like to go there
to have to live with
having gone out
of your cotton picking mind

been there
an uglier place on earth
in life, I cannot imagine

would do whatever it takes
all it takes to avoid
descending into hell on earth
not a pretty place

what a skin to have
to live in, abide in
having to live crack

whatever I must do I do
to remain intact

how I hated having to separate
having our precious time together
ruined

plummet from such heights
of delight

into the depths
anti-culture, anti-life
into the depths
of unhappiness

with joy so near at hand


© Obediah Michael Smith, 2010
6:29 p.m. 23.06.10