Rags by the Door
Copyright 2013 Gordon Kuhn
Poet in the Rain, All rights reserved.

It’s fucking 3 AM!
I growl at it
—I growl at him,
There,
There, the reflection by the door.
I should be in bed!

I should be in bed, but I’m not.
I’m not!
Instead—
I’m drinking beer,
At a solitary party.
And it’s fucking 3 AM!

What would they say,
If they would know?
What would they think?
That the injury is so thin?
And yet they cannot even see,
The shadow by the door,
The bundle of rags,
Left by me years before,
Left in a pile,
Added to each day.
Just inside the door.
The injury is so much more.
The injury is so damn much more.

Over there,
Beside the door.
It rises up,
And speaks its mind
Once more.
Its rush is to remind,
To drive the dagger of memory
Deeper cut than before.

Don’t tell me to hush!
I‘ll tell you in a rush.
Just who the hell are you?
To speak to me from way back when.

Give me a piece of cheese.
Give me my bottle standing there.
Don’t you dare judge me.
If you please.
If I please.
I’ll drink it down
In a gulp.
It’s fucking 3 AM.

The beggar lays there,
Lays there near the door.
All crumpled, he lays upon the floor,
And wants me to comply with his wish
To visit spaces known to him,
Known to him and thought I so very dim
In my mental category of time and dates
Known to him, but lived by me.
And it’s fucking 3 AM.
And I rail at him.
And I rail at me.
And I drink my beer
And it’s fucking 3 AM.

And thus clouds fell upon the mind
To straight up fog the evil from design
The melancholy from repentance fled
And acted as if the soul were dead.

Twice spoke the prophets to the crowds
Twice came the loud resound
And there and then the prophets died
And there and then all were denied.