untitled
	
the purple stain of a berry-eating bird
spreads out on my windshield in the rain, re-

minding this killer loose, making dead people 
with his fraggy bullets as they shop,
take their kids to school, the blood-

stain spreading down her collar, through the ironed shirt
in cool October, home team doing badly, 
stocks going way to hell, war on the horizon, that flight 

works with a furious eye 
and no one sees a thing
but we fall to him, in prayer as he flees 

feeling the murky thrall of pain

~

with the suddeness of love i saw the bird
and knew the world da Vinci drew
and we build churches to, i heard

the rain then looked out
and the little duck was there, appearing to sleep
on the creek, and in the moment
(which got richer) with the veil of soft rain
and the grey sky i felt drawn into the scene
for the year and the others 

crows watch, and terns too

~

i begin living aphoristically, giving
weight to each part of me,
trying the motion of my feigned collapse,
stepping from the car like a webbed thing,
putting  poses to imbalance to know 
how getting shot would feel, the wet hit, 
the spin of shock, falling off the splintered dock

trying to grasp poetry's concentric ring, 
the matter of fact, the aim of the thing



© Copyright 2002 Peter Chapman

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